Villa of a broken heart

From my previous post  you know that in 1905 Beatrice Rothschild was facing a tough time in her personal life and the incredible luck of inheriting a fortune.

 Modern psychology insists that the best way to go through personal crisis is to unleash your creativity. 

Beatrice did exactly that. 

The result can be seen even a century later.

 

Villa Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild is built on the top of the hill in Cap Ferrat. 

If you stay nearby, the best way to reach it is by foot. 

You could drive but parking the car will test your skills.

From the reception you enter the magical world of la Belle Epoch.

 
Beatrice got the idea when she visited the Greek-style mansion Kerylos at the end of the neighbouring Beaulieu-sur-mer bay belonging to her husband’s cousin. 

She decided to build a villa where she could exhibit her art and furniture collections.

 

The building work started in 1905. 

The hired architects could not get their heads round the fact that their designs should enhance the collections  and not the other way around. Beatrice’s temperament also did not help. 

As a result, the building of the villa lasted 7 years and 7 architects were involved. 

Beatrice took an active part in the project. Anecdotes still circulate how European merchant and antique dealers were coming to the Beaulieu-sur-mer train station where Beatrice personally inspected their products and made deals straight from the platform. 

 

 

 

The experts said that in Villa Ephrussi Beatrice brought together two beauties – the beauty of  nature and the beauty of human creations. 

The building resembles the architectural trends of 15th and 16th century Venice and Florence. Originally the villa was painted in okra.

 It has a covered palazzo and the rest of the rooms show the owner’s taste for 18th century French furniture. There are many antique treasures such as Louise XVI furniture, Meissen porcelain and the art of Fragonard and Francois Boucher. 

Actually, no one knows how the rooms were decorated during Beatrice’s time. All her belongings from her other homes in Paris and Monte Carlo were brought here after her death and the rooms were redecorated. 

 

 

A wonderful surprise for the visitors is the chance to enjoy a lovely break in the restaurant located in the oval dining salon. The restaurant also has an outside area looking towards the “Sevres garden”. 

Yes, Villa Ephrussi is also “a museum of gardens”. 

Creating of the gardens became a Herculean work. 

The rocks were dynamited and flattened. Soil was brought to plant trees and flowers. 

The most impressive garden is the French garden in front of the villa. At its end Beatrice built “The Temple of Love”. 

To shield the gardens from the strong Mistral wind Beatrice arranged thick glass panels, similar to the panels protecting the decks of the ships, along the terraces of the villa. 

She lived her dream of cruising around the world even when she stayed in the villa!

 

 

 

The dream did not last long. Beatrice completed the villa in 1912 and in 1914 WW1 broke out.

The garden project stopped unfinished. Beatrice left the villa and never returned to it.

She died from tuberculosis in 1934 aged 69 at the Hotel d’Angletterre in Davos, Switzerland. 

 

 

The gardens were restored and re-created after the war and today there are nine gardens displaying themes from different countries. 

And that is the story of the villa of the rich eccentric woman with white hair and a broken heart. 

A villa, a rich woman and a down-to-earth Hemingway

The main sightseeing attraction in Cap Ferrat is the Villa Ephrussi , built by Baroness Beatrice Rothschild, one of the wealthiest women during the Belle Epoque. 

Beatrice left the villa to the French Academy of Fine Art. In her will she insisted that the villa retain its vibe of a “living salon”. 

This alone tremendously increases the appeal of the villa. The world wants to see how the other half lives. 

LA BELLE EPOQUE 

La Belle Epoque translates in English as a beautiful era or good times. 

Times were really good at the end of 19th century. The Franco-Prussian war ended in 1871 and Europe enjoyed 40 years of peace, economic and cultural prosperity. Wide-spread optimism and trust in the future prevailed. The iconic Eiffel tower built for the World Fair in 1889 is a symbol of this era. 

Until the break of WW1 in 1914. 

The name La Belle Epoque was given after the war, expressing nostalgia and sentiment for this golden era. 

THE ROTHSCHILD DINASTRY

Beatrice belonged to one of  the richest and most influential families of the 19th century. 

Her great grandfather Mayer Amshel Rothschild established a banking business in Frankfurt in 1870. He built an international banking system by strategically placing his five sons in the financial centres of Europe – Frankfurt, London, Paris, Vienna and Naples. 

This smart business adventure became an extraordinary financial success and brought power and social recognition to the Rothschilds. In 1822 the Austrian Emperor made all five sons Barons. 

In order to control their enormous wealth and preserve their influence Rothschilds began marring within the family. Often to cousins. Consequently, the family grew into an affluent and powerful dynasty. Their motto still is  “Unity, Integrity and Hard Work”.

THE FAMILY

Beatrice’s father Alphonse was a son of James, one of the five Rothschild sons, who settled in Paris. He married Leonora, his cousin from London. They had three children – Beatrice, her sister Bettina and her brother Edouard.

Alphonse had a very successful career and became a governor of the Banque de France. 

Beatrice inherited her love for art and antiques from her parents. Her father collected works of art and was a benefactor of French museums.

 

BARONESS BEATRICE EPHRUSSI DE ROTHSCHILD

I cannot find many details about Beatrice and her life. 

Usually people describe her as an attractive woman with a delicate face and a “ravishing figure”. When she was 20 years old her hair suddenly went white and remained white for the rest of her life. 

Her peers remembered her as “a wild young woman” dressed in a pink gown and “insufferably excitable”. Beatrice seemed intelligent and very well-mannered even though she possessed the famous Rothschild temperament and eccentricity. 

She unapologetically lived as she wanted. During construction of the villa she told one of the architects “ I do not ask what you think. I explain to you what I want.”.She insisted that the gardeners attending the villa should wear sailors barrettes so she could maintain the fantasy that she was travelling on a boat around the world. She also“demanded that flowers should grow in the mistral”.  

Beatrice lived a life of indulgence and pleasure. She extensively travelled around the world, collecting art, porcelain and antique furniture. She often gambled in the Monte Carlo casino and bought two properties in Monaco to be near it. She attended boxing matches, was member of a women’s flying club, drove her own car and was interested in tennis and horse racing. 

She had two chimpanzees who were talked to and treated as humans. In addition, in all her houses she had aviaries with thousands of birds. Her pet mongoose slept near her bed in a bespoke Louise XVI chair. Beatrice organised a dog wedding with diamonds on the paws of the dogs and spectacular fireworks. 

TROUBLES IN PARADISE – THE MARRIAGE 

 

19-year old Beatrice impulsively broke the long tradition to marry within the family. She fell in love with Mauris Ephrussi, a banker from Odessa, 15 years her senior.

Mauris was a cheater, a compulsive gambler and ran up enormous debts. Sadly, he infected Beatrice with a sexually transmitted disease, probably syphilis, denying her the ability to have children. 

After a year the marriage broke down even though Beatrice and Mauris remained legally married for 21 years. In 1904 her father initiated divorce proceedings. He wanted to protect Beatrice’s inheritance, because at this point Mauris owed a vast amount of money.  A year later Beatrice’s father passed away. 

 

 

Beatrice was 40 years old, divorced, grieving for her father and deeply depressed. She and her brother had just inherited 700 million euros.  

Remember the famous Scott Fitzgerald’s quote “Rich people are different than you and me. Unless you were born  rich it is very difficult to understand.” 

And an equally famous reply of Earnest Hemingway “Yes, they have more money”. 

What was Beatrice going to do?

TO BE CONTINUED

Bijou place you may not know

Any discovery of a treasure hidden in plain sight brings an epic delight.

 And also the nagging inner voice “How come you have missed it for so long?”.

Take for example the visitors to the French Riviera. Even the regular tourists  blissfully miss the Riviera’s bijou called the village of Saint- Joan- Cap – Ferrat. 

The reason is definitely not logistical. Cap-Ferrat is a natural peninsula on the French Riviera only 10 km away from Nice and 18 km from Monaco.

 A taxi driver from Nice airport can reach a hotel in Cap-Ferrat in 30 min. 

There are trains, buses and boats available during throughout the year. 

Fortunately, Cap-Ferrat’s unpopularity with mass tourism helps to preserve its natural and created beauty. 

Uncrowded beaches, picturesque coves, spectacular views towards the neighbouring bays of Villefranche-sur-mer and Beaulieu-sur-mer and hiking costal paths form a part of the resort’s charms. 

The climate remains mild all year round, with very little rain in the summer and relatively warm winters. 

 

The steep elevation from the sea to the Alps mountains shelters the cape from the strong Mistral wind. 

The French movie  “Chocolat”with the famous actors Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp presented the arrival of  the Mistral as symbolising a mysterious longing for something. Metaphorically or not, experiencing the Mistral wind in Cap-Ferrat is unforgettable. 

 

 

The peninsula is build on dry rocks with limited fresh water.

The water supply problem was resolved in the late 19th century. 

This improvement encouraged the planting of olive threes, pine woods and subtropical plantations of palm trees, Hibiscus and Jacarandas. 

All the flora remains man-made.

 

The history of the peninsula unfolds as dramatic as its landscape. 

From a humble fishing village Saint-Jean- Cap-Ferrat became a magnet for the reach and royalty. 

The town has ancient roots. In the 6th century a hermit monk from Egypt called Hospitals lived in a ruined tower on the peninsula and in his honour the cape was named Cap-Saint Hospice. 

From the 14th century, the county of Nice, including Cap-Ferrat came under the House of Savoy. 

In 1860 France annexed it. 

 

 

A pivotal moment for the Cap Ferrat community was the arrival of King Leopold II of Belgium who bought a large estate on the peninsula, built luxury villas and constructed beautiful gardens .  

The beautiful Jardin Botanique Les Cedres he created still exists today. 

 

The village of Saint-Jean-Cap Ferrat separated from the town of Villefranche-sur-mer in 1904 and adopted the current name Saint-Jean-Cap Ferrat in 1907. 

In 2012 the prices of real estate in Cap Ferrat were the second most expensive in the world after Monaco. 

 

 

What sets Cap-Ferrat apart from the other Mediterranean resorts? Without doubt the magnificent nature, the preserved charm, the heritage, the balance between tradition and modernity.

 Cap-Ferrat offers authenticity, exclusivity and undeniable charm.   

A little bit of heaven

 

 

The phrase “French Riviera” contains an obvious geographical reference. It relates to the Southeastern coast of France. On the West the Riviera  begins at Cassis, a small town 20 km east of Marseille and continues to the French border with Italy to the East. 

The word “Riviera” has a Latin origin and means a “bank” or a “shore”. Italians used it to describe the coastal area of Liguria in the northwest of the country. So, the word “Riviera” depicts “a region characterised by the rough contact of sea and mountain”. 

 

Surprisingly, the invention of the name “French Riviera” belongs to the British aristocracy. Traditionally, every upper class Englishman had to take the Grand Tour to Italy in his formative years. Around 1760 the nobility updated the tradition with a new trend- the fashion to visit Nice and the French Riviera in winter. 

 

The British fascination with the French Riviera began with a book. Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett wrote about the health benefits of the mild winter climate in the Nice area.  His book “Travels Through France and Italy” was published in 1766 and became very popular among wealthy Britains. 

 

Seizing the opportunity another Scotsman, Doctor John Brown, started prescribing a “climate-therapy” (change of climate to help cure diseases) to his rich and noble patients. Voila, the fashionable health resort and the name “French Riviera” for the region was born. 

 I personally prefer the French phrase “Cote d’Azur” (with accent on o) instead of ‘French Riviera”. 

The literal translation means  a “coast of deep blue” – the deep blue waters of Mediterranean sea and the vivid blue of the unclouded sky. 

 

 

The name is poetic because it was given by the poet Stephen Liegard. He was a lawyer and a senior civil servant, a poet and a dandy and published a book about the region of Nice called “La Cote d’Azur”in 1887 . 

He called the area “a country of blue sea, sky and flower”. The beautiful name stuck. 

 

Whenever the Southeastern Mediterranean coast of France is mentioned, its name always holds a luxury connotation. European and Russian Royalties, wealthy people, famous artists and nowadays celebrities have been and continue to be regular visitors to the region. An integral part of the glamorous allure of the Code d’Azur  is provided by the word’s most prestigious casinos. 

 

The pioneers of the gambling industry on the French Riviera were a ruling Prince and a fraudulent entrepreneur.

 Prince Charles III of the governing Grimaldi family of Monaco was facing a financial crisis in the middle of the 19th century. His solution to these money troubles came in the form of legalising  gambling and establishing  a casino and a company “La Societe de Bains de Mer” to manage it in December 1860. 

He hired the famous architect Charles Garnier (Opera Garnier in Paris) to build the casino.

 

The gambling did not take off very well.

The Prince went into negotiations with a French entrepreneur called Francois Blanc. 

Francois had a colourful entrepreneurial past including an arrest and trial for fraudulent business strategies in Bordeaux. 

In the middle of 19th century Francois was managing a hugely successful Casino in Bad Homburg, Germany. The problem was that the German casino attracted clients mostly in the summer.

Francois immediately recognised the ability of the Riviera to attract wealthy clients in the winter and all year round. 

 

The negotiations were long and painful. At the end the Prince conveyed shares of the “La Societe de Bains de Mer” to Francois Blanc. The company owned the rights to  public service – supply of water and gas, the right to build hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues  around the casino. Francois invested in developing  the infrastructure (roads and railway) of the country ensuring  easy access to Monaco.

The incredible successful rate of the casino led to a huge surge in the gambling industry on the Riviera. A series of exclusive, opulent casinos were build in Cannes, Nice, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Menton. They offer history, elegance and entertainment to their clients. 

So, I can suggest another name for the French Riviera and Cote d’Azur. The name is “Heaven” – an escape to a cosmopolitan space of serene beauty , extravagance and unparalleled comfort.