RIVIERA PAST AND PRESENT

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The Riviera: THEN AND NOW

The dazzling environs of The Maybourne Riviera have always attracted a chic, celebrated crowd

'The summer resort of notable and fashionable people' people'

Chanel on the Côte d’Azur

Words by

JUSTINE PICARDIE

A generation of artists, musicians, writers and thinkers found inspiration on the Riviera – none more so than the celebrated style pioneer

century ago, just as modernism took hold in Paris, it also began to make its influence felt on the French Riviera, as artists and writers flocked to the sunlight of the Côte d’Azur. Until then, holidaying on the Riviera had been more closely associated with the British aristocracy, European royalty and Russian nobility, for whom winter and early spring were the preferred seasons. Indeed, Queen Victoria was such a fan of the region that she made regular trips there from 1882 onwards; in 1899 she described it in her diary as a ‘paradise of nature, which I grieve to leave, as I get more attached to it every year. I shall mind returning to the sunless north, but I am so grateful for all I have enjoyed here.’

Victoria’s son and heir, the future Edward VII, shared his mother’s affection for the Riviera (although she disapproved of his frequent visits to the casinos in Monte Carlo and Nice). But after the disruption of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, a different atmosphere took hold of the Côte d’Azur. Picasso became a regular visitor, as did his friend Coco Chanel; while the leading proponents of the Jazz Age, F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, settled there for a time. It is thanks to Fitzgerald’s great novel, Tender is the Night, that the Riviera would become forever associated with romance and hedonism, as the dazzling ‘summer resort of notable and fashionable people’. His fellow expatriates, including Ernest Hemingway and Cole Porter, contributed to the growing legend of a semi-imaginary, enchanted landscape. ‘It’s odd,’ observed Picasso in 1923, when he was painting a series of neoclassical pictures during a summer in Antibes, ‘in Paris I never draw fauns, centaurs, or mythological heroes like these. It’s as if they only live here.’

Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dalí were similarly inspired, and both were frequent guests of Coco Chanel at La Pausa, her beautiful villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. And it was here that Chanel would define her timeless vision of Riviera chic, which remains as alluring today as it was in the 1920s. ‘Fashion passes; style remains,’ declared Chanel, in one of her celebrated maxims, and nowhere is this more evident than in the photograph of her wearing a striped sailor’s top and trousers, her hands in her pockets, standing beside swathes of lavender in the garden of La Pausa.

The story of La Pausa (a house that I was fortunate to visit while researching my biography of Coco Chanel) seems to characterise the fabled appeal of the Côte d’Azur. Standing high above the wooded promontory of Cap Martin, with a commanding view of the Mediterranean, it took its name from the legend that Mary Magdalene had rested (or ‘paused’) beneath the olive trees here on her flight from Jerusalem after the Crucifixion. Hence an ancient chapel dedicated to Our Lady of la Pausa is still sheltered within these grounds.

Chanel signed the deeds to the property in February 1929, but she already knew the area well, from her frequent cruises along the coast aboard the 2nd Duke of Westminster’s private yacht, the Flying Cloud. The Duke had first met Chanel in Monte

From left: Coco Chanel at Villa la Pausa; the exterior of the house; Pablo Picasso at Antibes in 1948

‘It was here that Chanel would define her timeless vision of Riviera chic‘

Below: Eileen Gray’s E-1027 house. Right: Chanel in the gardens at La Pausa

Clockwise, from left: Winston Churchill painting at La Pausa; Eileen Gray’s modernist E-1027 house; Le Train Bleu; Queen Victoria described the area as ‘a paradise of nature’

‘Artists and writers flocked to the Cote d ‘Azur ‘

Carlo, during the Christmas season of 1923, the same year that she opened her boutique in Cannes. At the time, she was nearing the end of her affair with a Russian Grand Duke, Dmitri Pavlovich, (who had introduced her to another Russian émigré, Ernest Beaux, the perfumer with whom she conceived the inimitable Chanel N°5 in 1921). Following the Duke’s ardent courtship, Chanel became his lover for a decade, and they were to remain life-long friends.

By the spring of 1924, Chanel was designing the costumes for the Ballets Russes production of Le Train Bleu, named after the luxury overnight express train from Paris to the south of France. Sergei Diaghilev’s new ballet reflected the potent creative connection between Paris and the Riviera: its music was by Darius Milhaud, a leading Modernist composer, with a scenario by Jean Cocteau, sets by the Cubist sculptor Henri Laurens and a stage curtain by Picasso, depicting two women running along a beach. In turn, Chanel’s costumes were inspired by the sports clothes that she had popularised on the Riviera: striped tricots and bathing suits, beach sandals and golf shoes, tennis dresses

and shorts; and by the crew’s uniforms on the Flying Cloud.

The Duke’s influence was also evident in La Pausa: the first meeting with the villa’s architect, Robert Streitz, was held aboard the Flying Cloud. Streitz would later recall that Westminster’s instruction was simple: ‘I want everything to be built with the best materials and under the best working conditions.’ Yet despite a general assumption that it was the Duke who financed the villa, it was Chanel’s name on the deed, and the 1.8 million francs in payment came from her bank account, rather than Westminster’s. She also made all the important decisions about the design, taking the Blue Train from Paris on her regular visits to the site. Perhaps most significantly, Chanel’s vision included a replica of the sculptural stone staircase from the medieval abbey of Aubazine, where she had spent several formative years as a child; the cloisters around the inner courtyard at La Pausa were also reminiscent of Aubazine, as were its pristine white walls.

Work progressed swiftly, and the villa was completed in less than a year. It was featured in the March 1930 issue of American Vogue, under the headline ‘Mlle. Chanel’s House’. ‘There is no doubt that Mademoiselle Gabrielle Chanel is a person with very rare taste,’ declared Vogue, ‘and it is therefore not surprising that she has built for herself one of the most enchanting villas that ever materialised on the shores of the Mediterranean.’ Vogue was similarly impressed by the garden – ‘groves of orange trees, great slopes of lavender, masses of purple iris, and huge clusters of climbing roses’ – and its perfect setting above Cap Martin: ‘On the left is all the lovely sweep of the Italian coastline, and on the right, the Rock of Monaco and the town of Monte Carlo form one of the most breathtaking views in the whole Riviera, while in one huge semicircle in front of the house stretches the blue of the Mediterranean.’ Little wonder that Winston Churchill, a long-

standing friend of the Duke of Westminster and Chanel, became a regular visitor to Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, staying at La Pausa and several other villas in the area, where he was inspired to paint a series of accomplished landscapes. (One of these, an impressionistic view of the coast in subtle shades of blue and green, was painted at La Pausa, and now hangs at the Dallas Museum of Art.)

Roquebrune’s spectacular position had also attracted a leading figure of the avant-garde, the Irish designer Eileen Gray, who completed her own modernist home on its rocky shoreline in 1929. Just as Chanel christened her perfumes with significant numbers, so Gray named the house E-1027, in a cryptic reference to her love affair with a Romanian architect named Jean Badovici. (E stands for Eileen, followed by 10 for Jean – J being the tenth letter of the alphabet – 2 for Badovici, and 7 for the G in Gray.) Badovici’s friend and fellow architectural pioneer, Le Corbusier, would subsequently stay at E-1027, and was so taken with the natural surroundings that he chose an adjacent site to construct his holiday cabin, Le Cabanon, intent on making it a ‘repository of sun and light’.

Gray’s innovative home has recently been painstakingly restored, including her ingenious furniture and stylish interiors, and is now open to visitors, while Le Cabanon has been added to the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, giving fresh impetus for a new generation of design aficionados to make the pilgrimage to Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. How fitting, therefore, that The Maybourne Riviera itself reflects the striking principles of modernism, and its notable art collection includes works by Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray. Yet the hotel’s cool aesthetics are combined with a dedication to the art of warm hospitality, creating the perfect retreat from which to follow in the inspirational footsteps of Churchill and Chanel. Justine Picardie is the author of six books, including Coco Chanel: the Legend and the Life (published by Harper Collins)

‘Chanel‘ s costumes were inspired by the sports clothes she had popularised on the Riviera‘

Zelda and F Scott Fitzgerald on the Riviera in 1926

Sea Change: Inside The Maybourne Riviera

Words by JOHN O’CEALLAIGH

Experience a clifftop idyll that playfully pays tribute to both the landscape and loves of the most iconic residents of the South of France

f your first visit to The Maybourne Riviera is on a radiantly sunny day – and, this being the Côte d’Azur, it’s likely – prime yourself for a moment beneath the Louise Bourgeois sculpture of an entwined couple, suspended in the lobby. From there, it’s a few short steps through the glasswalled Riviera Restaurant to one of the clifftop hotel’s many terraces.

The extended wraparound terrace reveals the most incredible panorama. Below lies the grandeur of Monaco, its customary streak of super-yachts gliding in and out of Port Hercules; to the left, beyond the terracotta rooftops of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, the last few kilometres of France give way to the promise of Italy. Time your arrival right and a dazzling spectacle faces you: a cavalcade of swooping, looping hang-gliders. The hotel’s airy eyrie provides a thrilling foothold from which to observe their antics.

Hypnotising as that spectacle is, aesthetes will find their attention drawn indoors. Years in the making, The Maybourne Riviera, with exterior design by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, provides a canvas for a generation of creatives: the interiors by André Fu, Bryan O’Sullivan Studio, Pierre Yovanovitch and Rigby & Rigby are bright and joyful. The Riviera Restaurant’s squishy chairs are a chipper cobalt-blue; sunloungers circling the infinity pool are vibrant bursts of tangerine. And museum-worthy artworks are strewn throughout, as if on show at a collector’s home. Any sense that grand hotels in the south of France need to be traditional is dispelled: it feels fun, not fusty or formal.

That playfulness is also on show at top-floor restaurant Ceto, recently awarded its first Michelin star, where cute centrepieces of delicately crafted glass sea creatures attract admiring glances. But the focus soon shifts to the Mediterranean delicacies of chef Mauro Colagreco, who led Mirazur, in nearby Menton, to the top of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Locals were proud of that accolade, though it is hardly surprising that a restaurant in this bountiful idyll between mountains and sea would rank so highly; this is a place where everyday activities are infused with reminders of nature’s supremacy. Amble the walkways by The Maybourne’s Riviera’s restored gardens and you might catch a drift of fragrance from flourishing citrus orchards and herb beds. Within Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, a 2,000-year-old olive tree still bears fruit. And even in on-the-go, moneyed Monaco, at the venerable food market La Condamine, residents linger over aperitifs, their designer bags stuffed with fresh fruit and vegetables.

Of course, much of that fresh produce makes its way back to the hotel. Already a Maybourne mainstay through his relationship with The Connaught, Jean-Georges Vongerichten makes his South of France debut here: his sun-soaked Pool Bar serves decadent truffle pizzas and moreish lobster rolls (perfect with chilled champagne), while his eponymous restaurant will offer superlative sashimi and other delicacies with its sushi bar overseen by the renowned Japanese chef Hiro Sato. Benoit Dutreige’s creations are typically more calorific, and undoubtedly worth it: the pastry chef’s afternoon tea is pretty as a picture, and comes complete with zesty Menton lemon tart and crumbly passionfruit and mango macarons.

'Everyday activities are suffused with reminders of nature's supremacy'

The mosaic pavements are inspired by landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx’s work in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

On holiday, a languid lunch pairs so beautifully with a midafternoon nap and the hotel’s rooms and suites have been designed as sanctuaries in which to linger. Each one has a terrace o ering its own knockout view; interiors are crisp and tranquil; mammoth marble bathtubs are irresistible. e hotel’s common areas are captivating too, with surprising, arresting artworks everywhere to admire. A number of mid-20th-century pieces by Le Corbusier are secreted here, alongside a dynamic sculptural work by Conrad Shawcross that is embedded in the corner of Riviera Restaurant, and a 2017 addition to Annie Morris’s poignant Stack series.

Of course, cultural pursuits also abound beyond the hotel’s grounds. Monaco’s creative cachet was bolstered by the 2021 opening of its own Hauser & Wirth gallery: the introductory Louise Bourgeois exhibition was announced to the public with one of the artist’s mammoth arachnids on a nearby lawn. Hauser & Wirth’s modern art is intended to push boundaries, but these surroundings have always compelled and inspired artists and creatives. Nearly a century ago, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, pioneering architect and furniture designer Eileen Gray built villa E-1027: a striking bone-white modernist house that recently reopened to visitors after a ve-year renovation. Gray’s prescient appreciation of space and proportion means the home could almost have been constructed today, and its clean, crisp form has in uenced present-day designers the world over. A notable neighbouring property, also open to visitors by prior arrangement, is considerably more rustic. Cabanon de Le Corbusier is a

wooden cabin by the aforementioned Swiss-French architect, whose murals add a colourful jolt to plain interiors. e duo’s enduring legacy provides a poetic reminder that many of the pleasures they enjoyed remain readily available now. From their homes, it’s a short drive to the perfume capital of Grasse, where pastel-pink roses that bloom each May are integral to Chanel N°5. Visit in July and you should see purple pastures ablaze with lavender. Near Cannes, monks have resided on Île Saint-Honorat since the fth century and their industriousness is admirable: among many duties, they tend the island’s eighthectare vineyard, whose wines are available for sale.

Whichever crest of the Riviera calls your name, there’s always the irresistible lure of the sea. With endless sunshine draping shimmering diamonds on its surface, the Mediterranean is the star of the show, from the seaside cafés of Nice to the boisterous bars of Antibes. In Monaco, locals gravitate to the newly renovated Larvotto beach, while Maybourne Riviera guests can convene at the hotel’s Riviera Playa beach club, footsteps from the sea. at exclusive enclave also serves seafood by Colagreco, so it’s somewhere you could discreetly and e ortlessly while away a day. But my favourite spot is back uphill, at e Maybourne Riviera, by the spa, on a lounger or in the in nity pool, gazing on an expanse of sea and air that is a deep, endless blue. And as dusk falls, the panorama becomes more spectacular still. e heavens turn mesmerising shades of peach and plum and scarlet, as the sun sinks again into the mighty Mediterranean. M To experience e Maybourne Riviera visit maybourneriviera.com

'The rooms are sanctuaries in which to linger'

From top: the Riviera Restaurant and Panoramic Suite have spectacular views