Luxury homes French riviera

Cap d'Antibes
The Cape is practically synonymous with the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc, originally built in 1870 as the Villa Soleil, a home for impover-ished artists founded by newspaper magnate Hippolyte de Vilemessant and the author Adolphe d'Ennery, and one of the very first hotels on the coast to feature an outdoor swimming pool which, for a princely sum, is stili open to the right type of non-resident. After a flurry of popularity with the Russians and the English at the end of the higth century, when it was the Grand Hotel du Cap, it sank into a genteel retirement before being resuscitated by the indefatigable New York newspaper magnate James Gordon Bennett. It played a major role in the creation of the Riviera's summer season.when popular American socialites Gerald and Sara Murphy began to come down here from Paris in 1923, discovering the hitherto unheralded joys of sunbathing on the beach when Antoine Sella, the owner of the Grand Hotel, kept it open in July and August in an attempt to recoup losses from a bad winter season.They had the place to themselves, along with Picasso's family and a Chinese couple.That same summer, Coco Chanel astonished everyone with her suntan, and a fad was born. In 1925, Sella revamped Eden Roc, which, with its eight luxurious cabanons (chalets) on the beach, is stili rated as the most beautiful place for a swim and a tan on the whole Riviera.The Murphys, famous for holding the very best parties, bought a house on the beach, where they created and lived the carefree but elegant sunny seaside existence that became the essential myth of the Riviera, sharing it with everyone who happened by, including Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald.the latterofwhom based hischaracters Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender is the Night on the Murphys.<br />
";