Our boat trip continues. Today we are calling into the harbour of Beaulieu-sur-Mer - a beautiful town along the coast and not far from Nice.Just before the port is La Réserve de Beaulieu - a 4-star hotel known as the 'pink palace' and one of the 'Leading Small Hotels of the World.' Click on the link to read more and to take a virtual tour.
The hotel's history dates back to the times of the Belle Epoque. It was founded in 1880 by Pierre Lottier, a restaurant owner from Nice. Originally a luxury seafood restaurant - 'La Reserve' was the nickname given to the live fish tank which Pierre Lottier had dug out in order to stock the local fishermen’s catch.
In 1905, La Réserve de Beaulieu added some ten prestigious rooms after which aristocrats, captains of industry and artists used to meet up : King Gustave V of Sweden, King Leopold II of Belgium, Leo Tolstoy, Sir Thomas Lipton, Gustave Eiffel and Mistinguet. The American press magnate and sports lover Gordon Bennett Jr became a great habitué of La Reserve and promoted it in his newspaper, The New York Herald.
La Réserve lived through the Belle Epoque, the Great War and the Roaring Twenties and at the end of the Second World War, the new owners built a large Florentine style villa adjoining the restaurant’s veranda. The hotel's celebrity guest book from this period and the following years is a compendium of illustrious guests from the fifties and the age of glamour such as Rita Hayworth, Clark Gable, Paul Newman, Charlie Chaplin, or Edith Piaf, Jean Marais, Frank Sinatra.
The hotel's current owners are Nicole and Jean-Claude Delion who continue the tradition of the 'pink palace' on the Côte d’Azur.
6 comments:
interesting history!
I sure wouldn't mind staying in a room in that hotel!
This is a wonderful series. I will stay tuned to see if the boat went by the Grand Hotel at Cap Ferrat.
We did that on the last trip I reported on Dave. I'll be going regularly this summer tho so should be able to get more shots with luck.
http://monte-carlo-daily-photo.blogspot.com/2009/09/boat-trip-to-cap-ferrat-grand-hotel-du.html
On this trip we called in to one of the bays of Cap ferrat and afterwards I transferred boats and went to Beaulieu.
Will you be able to see this celebration? Maybe you are not in this area.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100623/ap_on_en_ot/eu_monaco_albert_s_engagement_17
J'adore this gorgeous soft shell pink colour used on buildings in Monte Carlo - it's so classy !! I visited the Casino last year and didn't like that murky colour - tell me, did that use to be a soft pink ?? even the Grimaldi Palace looked as if it had had a colour change. Stay with the Elegant,Classy Pink !! Viva la Rose
Dianne xx
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