Construction of the Eden Roc was completed in 1870. Built in pure Napoleon III style by the founder of French newspaper “Le Figaro”, Hippolyte de Villemessant, the residence was meant for writers seeking inspiration. But the hotel owes its mythic dimensions to Antoine Sella, who gave the Eden Roc the reputation of being a prestigious establishment. In 1914, Antoine Sella announced the opening of the Pavillon Eden Roc, complete with a luxurious pool filled with seawater and carved into a rock. It didn’t take much more to attract sovereigns, maharajas, businessmen, and artists to the French Riviera, not only in winter – the favored season in those days – but also in summer starting in the Roaring 20s. F. Scott Fitzgerald bears witness to this in his novel “Tender is the Night”: “Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people…”
The hotel got its fifth star on September 30th, 2009, but it had already become a veritable sanctuary for the Festival de Cannes. The people behind the scenes come to life to satisfy the needs of its temporary residents. Drowned in a luxurious nine acre park filled with lush Aleppo pine trees, the palace comprises two main sections: the Hôtel du Cap (the Napoleon III part that dominates the park) and the Eden-Roc (that overhangs the sea). It has always lived within this paradox. A paradox that Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Yves Montand, The Beatles, Cary Grant, Blake Edwards, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Liza Minelli, and Frank Sinatra have all been a part of along with other personalities from every horizon. Marlene Dietrich reading the newspaper in her chaise longue, Pablo Picasso in shorts and espadrilles sketching the landscape on a table corner, Gary Cooper, his shirt tied up at the midriff – it would almost be easier to make a list of those who haven’t stayed here. For Arielle Dombasle, “the magnetism of this place resides in the permanent rapture it procures, but also the strong inner feeling of tasting the nostalgia of an era of calm, of nonchalant and secret luxury…” This is why the Eden-Roc simply belongs to a handful of mythic establishments that just simply don’t do things like the others.
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