A faded Jazz Age hotel on the French Riviera will find new life as a luxury residential development for the super-rich.
Hôtel Provençal is a large 10-storey building located in the stylish and opulent Mediterranean resort of Cap d’ Antibes. It was the playground of the rich and famous, visited by the likes of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Picasso, Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin.
It was where Ernest Hemingway drank; It’s where Coco Chanel invented beach pajamas for her staycations; Where Ella Fitzgerald serenaded the audience from her balcony in 1960. But it has now been closed for almost 50 years.
Built in 1926 by American financier Frank Jay Gould, the 200-room Hôtel Provençal quickly became an exclusive, glamorous destination and star-drawing attraction.
Moving to the French Riviera in 1924, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald rented a villa (now also a hotel) on the same street where he wrote. Tender is the Night.
Sun-soaked promenades and wealthy, rudderless visitors formed the novel’s backdrop; The novel’s protagonists, Dick and Nicole Diver, were believed to be based on a wealthy immigrant couple the Fitzgeralds had befriended in France. The book opens with a description of the town, the fictional Hôtel des Étrangers, and its “bright tan prayer rug of the beach.”
“We are coming home in the autumn, but I don’t want that,” Fitzgerald wrote to his editor Maxwell Perkins in 1926. “I would like to live and die on the French Riviera.”
“We will come home in the fall, but I don’t want it. “I would like to live and die on the French Riviera.”
F Scott Fitzgerald
In the following years, Hôtel Provençal would host Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy and The Rolling Stones. But in 1977 it all came to an end.
The Gould family sold the hotel to Paris-based jeweler Alexandre Reza in 1972. There were reportedly disagreements over Reza’s plans for the property, as well as the salary of the staff. In 1977, Reza closed on the hotel for renovations that never took place.
The hotel has since been closed due to some failed attempts to save it. It was acquired in 2014 by John Caudwell, British billionaire businessman and founder of Phones 4u. He bought it from property developer Cyril Dennis, who planned to turn it into luxury apartments.
“Le Provençal is a magnificent Art Deco palace with a magnificent heritage,” said Caudwell. “Our restoration project transforms this landmark on the Côte d’Azur into one of the most sought-after ultra-premium residential projects on the French Riviera, securing the future of this important historic building and creating a legacy for Cap d’Antibes.”
Caudwell’s new £300 million project, scheduled for completion in 2025, will transform the 256,000 square meter hotel into 39 homes.
These will include one- to six-bedroom side apartments, penthouses and garden villas, as well as three triplex penthouses at the top of the building, each with a private terrace, pool and panoramic views of the coastline stretching to Nice, Monaco and Cannes. The price of the first apartments is between 4 and 8 million Euros, and the tented residences are over 15 million Euros.
“Our restoration project transforms this landmark on the Côte d’Azur into one of the most sought-after ultra-premium residential projects on the French Riviera.”
John Caudwell, property developer
Meanwhile, the building’s façade will be completely renovated, while its opulent Art Deco interiors, including carved wall panels, frescoes and stepped-edged ceilings, will also be restored.
The former hotel, renamed Le Provençal, will offer residents six acres of landscaped gardens, as well as an Art Deco cinema, cocktail bar, health spa, restaurant and children’s playroom. And hopefully it will breathe new life into this faded Jazz Age building.
Caudwell sales manager Lars Christiaanse said interest was “extremely high”, with almost a quarter of the flats sold off-plan to buyers from France, England, Northern Europe, Germany, America and Asia. Christiaanse believes that landmark residences and penthouses will also appeal to buyers from the Middle East, and – thanks in part to the F. Scott Fitzgerald influence – “American buyers want the best trophy homes on the French Riviera.”
“Le Provençal is a beautiful Art Deco palace that is a much-loved and respected architectural landmark in the local area,” Christiaanse said. “F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife chose to live on the French Riviera, attracted by the grandeur and beautiful setting, and to this day the location continues to attract visitors and homebuyers from around the world. Americans especially love the F. Scott Fitzgerald legacy.”