Tracing the footsteps of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald on the French Riviera
Summary
As the 100th anniversary of ‘The Great Gatsby’ nears, memories of the couple linger on the coast where the author wrote much of the novel.The Bar Fitzgerald in the Hôtel Belles Rives qualifies as one of Europe’s most sybaritic literary shrines. Resembling the interior of a Jazz Age ocean liner and filled with stylish art-deco furniture, it is perched above the glittering waters of Cap d’Antibes, offering voluptuous views across the French Riviera to Cannes.
It is easy to see why F. Scott Fitzgerald declared this coast “the loveliest piece of earth I’ve ever seen."
This hotel started life as a rental house called Villa St. Louis, where F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald lived in the mid-1920s with their young daughter, Scottie, and their ghosts are everywhere: A near-life-size photo of the author greets visitors at the entrance, and the walls are adorned with vintage snaps of the party-loving couple frolicking on the sands, as well as portraits of their friends Gerald and Sara Murphy, the charming, well-to-do U.S. expats who lured artists to these shores. It was aperitif hour, so I ordered a Rose Fitzgerald cocktail, which mixes Scott’s favorite tipple, gin, with raspberry purée, litchi, cranberry and lime, while a pianist tinkled Cole Porter standards.
“Scott and Zelda did what they did best here," says Antoine Chauvin-Estène, the fourth-generation family CEO of the Belles Rives. “They spent their money and drank. They were at their most fashionable here. But there was too much fun," he admits, “too much alcohol."
The Great French Novel?
As Fitzgerald aficionados prepare to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of “The Great Gatsby" next April, such offbeat European sites are expected to draw more pilgrims. The journey has its ironic twists—starting with the fact that “Gatsby," regarded by many critics as the Great American Novel, was written on the Côte d’Azur and edited on a road trip across Italy. Although Fitzgerald made a start on the opus in Great Neck, Long Island, he and Zelda decided to head to France in the spring of 1924 to save money (thanks to the strength of the U.S. dollar) and write.
The Fitzgeralds first rented a villa in St. Raphaël, west of Cannes, from which they made regular excursions in their blue Renault to Cap d’Antibes to carouse with the Murphys. They returned to Cap d’Antibes in 1925 and most of 1926, hanging out with the Murphys’ artist friends like Pablo Picasso, Rudolph Valentino, Gertrude Stein, Isadora Duncan and the aspiring Ernest Hemingway. The couple’s wild marital dramas may have influenced the writing of “Gatsby" and, along with vivid depictions of the area’s natural beauty, suffuse Fitzgerald’s fourth and final novel, “Tender is the Night."
One of the most renowned sites from their travels today is the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc on the southern tip of Cap d’Antibes. Its architectural grandeur and vast sculpted gardens invite comparisons to the Palace of Versailles. The Fitzgeralds stayed several times in 1924, taking advantage of a modest breakthrough in the history of French tourism: The Riviera had long been popular as a winter escape, but the high-living Murphys had convinced the glamorous hotel’s owner to keep a couple of floors open in summer for a new generation of sun worshippers. The experiment changed vacation habits. While it’s now fabulously expensive to stay at the Cap-Eden-Roc, casual visitors can taste its five-star splendor by dropping by for lunch in the seafront restaurant. A spectacular pool now extends next to the cliffs down which Zelda would dive at night into the sea and demand that the terrified Scott follow, according to biographers.
But it was in their own rental house called Villa Marie, located some 35 miles west above St. Raphaël, that Fitzgerald wrote the first draft of “Gatsby" in the summer and fall of 1924. While the villa is now privately owned, I wanted to track it down.
I recognized from old photographs the belvedere of the belle époque villa, built in 1883 for a Parisian actress by one of her admirers, looming behind tall pine trees and an iron gate. After ringing the antique street bell with no response, I entered the extensive, overgrown grounds and knocked on the front door. The current resident was a vacationing German architect named Sabine who said she and her family had rented the villa without knowing the Fitzgerald connection. When they moved in, they discovered framed photos of Scott, Zelda and Scottie, and a copy of Scott’s personal ledger noting their stay.
Sabine let me take a quick peek inside, pointing out original features like the high ceilings with ornate trim and painted flourishes, antique fireplaces and old radiators. On the porch, I recognized the distinctive floor tiles from photos where the family had posed in 1924.
A party atmosphere
The French Riviera was a less improbable place to write a novel set in Long Island than one might think: As Scott and Zelda mostly hung out with wealthy American expats, they re-created a party atmosphere much like in Great Neck. But the Riviera influenced “Gatsby" in other ways too. While Scott was writing at Villa Marie, Zelda fell wildly in love with a French aviator and began an affair, according to biographers. When she demanded a divorce, he was both furious and devastated. Although the couple reconciled after the aviator left the Riviera, biographers argue that Scott’s anguish over Zelda was translated into the fictional Jay Gatsby’s disillusion with Daisy in New York’s Plaza Hotel, when he realizes that she can never return his obsessive love. Zelda tried to commit suicide soon after while the couple were visiting the Murphys in the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
For me, it was easier to imagine the Fitzgeralds’ happier moments on the Riviera at the quiet seaside village of Juan-les-Pins, where they stayed for most of 1926 in the Villa St. Louis (converted into the 43-room Hôtel Belles Rives in 1929), spending the profits of “Gatsby" film and theater adaptations. While there were plenty of wild parties at their abode and the Murphys’ sumptuous Villa America nearby, I could also imagine Fitzgerald strolling along the shore with the younger, little-known Hemingway, as Fitzgerald suggested edits for “The Sun Also Rises."
While the Cap today has a reputation as a playground for millionaires, the charming Provençal daily life the Fitzgeralds would have seen in the ’20s hasn’t vanished. One can stroll a few minutes along a quiet cove to a classic sand-floored beach bar called La Crique that serves delicious cheap wine and Gallic snacks to sun-bronzed locals. From there, I hiked to the Lighthouse of La Guaroupe with sweeping sea views, and took a shady outdoor seat at the charmingly-named Le Bistrot du Curé—the Priest’s Bistro—for a Nicoise salad and glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
Later, nursing my Rose Fitzgerald cocktail in the Belles Rives bar, I noticed a stone plaque mounted by the entrance. It quotes from one of Scott’s 1926 letters celebrating his return to his “beloved Riviera." “I’m happier than I’ve been for years," he declared. “It’s one of those strange, precious and all too transitory moments when everything in one’s life seems to be going well."
The words have a poignant ring today, knowing how the author’s life would progress. His next 14 years would spiral into alcohol abuse and disappointment until in 1940, when he would die of a heart attack in Los Angeles at age 44, convinced that he was a literary failure.
Still, as I descended the steps back toward the gently lapping Mediterranean, it was hard to dwell on thoughts of mortality and the vagaries of fame. It was time for a sunset swim.
Tony Perrottet is a writer in New York. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.