If it’s Friday, it must be France …
Do you ever come across something special when you are looking for something else? Then you read it or hold it in your hands to admire and remember all sorts of good things about it?
This afternoon I was sending some information about Antibes to my good friend Julie Mautner, creator of the excellent website, The Provence Post.
The next thing I knew I was re-reading this article and a wealth of great memories wrapped around me. My husband and I often drop by the Hotel Belles Rives for a meal in the exceptional La Passagère restaurant or a drink on the dazzling terrace. It’s always memorable. But the particular morning I gathered information for this article is something I will not forget.
Today I’m reposting the article I wrote for The Good Life France in 2016. If you read it then, I hope you will enjoy it again. After all, we can never have too much of a good thing, n’est-ce pas?
Hotel Belles Rives ~ Antibes southern France
The frivolous lyrics from Cole Porter’s Let’s Misbehave might very well have epitomized the mood on the Côte d’Azur when the song was published in 1927.
“There’s something wild about you child, That’s so contagious. Let’s be outrageous, Let’s misbehave!!!”
Not only was he penning the song, but quite possibly Porter was working through it while he hung out with Zelda and F. Scott 
Fitzgerald. They were staying at their rented Villa Saint-Louis on the shore of a scenic cove on the west side of the iconic Cap d’Antibes. The Fitzgeralds loved partying with their Jazz Age friends. The semi-Bohemian crowd included wealthy Americans and visiting artists, writers and hangers-on. Picasso, Hemingway, Cocteau, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein and Dorothy Parker were just a few of the regulars. Porter was a fixture at the piano in the music room of Villa Saint-Louis, overlooking the shimmering Mediterranean.
From all accounts, notably captured in Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, along with letters, journal entries and recorded memories by others in the Roaring Twenties, the French Riviera was rather a wild place to be. It was also, and continues to be, a fabled coastline of incomparable beauty and light that inspires artists to settle there and create.
The Belle of the French Riviera
Since 1929 the privately-owned Villa Saint-Louis has been known as Hôtel Belles Rives. At the time it was the only hotel on the water along the Côte d’Azur. And since 2001, the gracious third-generation owner, Marianne Estène-Chauvin has guided her beloved 5-star, 43-room gem with a clear desire to keep the best of the Fitzgerald years alive.
TO CONTINUE READING, CLICK RIGHT HERE for the link to the entire article and photos on page 55 of The Good Life France magazine. It’s a long article but worth the read (she said modestly …). ENJOY!
It was a pleasure to spend the morning
with Madame Estène-Chauvin, a charming, savvy businesswoman and artist, who loves what she does. To sit and chat and then be shown around the beloved property by her was truly an honour. Have you visited this iconic hotel?
