Inside La Colombe d’Or : The Grand Salon of the South of France
The first to arrive were Georges Braque and Fernand Léger – and soon after that Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Pablo Picasso. Welcome to La Colombe d’Or (“the Golden Dove”), a rustic, family-run and Spanish-tiled inn in the heart of Saint-Paul de Vence. Tucked away in the hills of the South of France, in the 1920s, farmer-turned-Provencal proprietors Paul Roux and his wife Baptistine (“Titti”) befriended their now famous art lodgers, and in perhaps the ultimate swap of a lifetime – offered free room and board in exchange for art.
La Colombe d’Or became a de facto gathering place for artists, bon vivants and flaneurs who escaped Paris during World War II. These days, the once tiny three-room inn has morphed into a 25-room property with a museum-like pedigree. Art is everywhere – a living and breathing relic of a time gone by. Just read the inn’s door signage: “Ici on loge à cheval, à pied ou en peinture,” (translation: Here we lodge those on foot, on horseback or those with paintings).
You might stumble across a Picasso flower vase. Or a Braque Cubism-esque still life. Elsewhere, a large Calder mobile dangles over the swimming pool while a chic Léger mural of the inn’s namesake dove sits perched on the terrace. In the dining room, rotating artworks are known to showcase paintings by Henri Matisse, Robert Delaunay and Walter Kandisnsky. Outside, Cesar Baldaccini’s oversized thumb sculpture stands by the entrance. Decked with wooden four-poster beds and well-worn oriental rugs, the inn’s simple rooms also feature paintings by Marice Bompard and Yves Klein. (The inn’s owner was also an artist whose calligraphic works can be viewed hanging next to the masterpieces).
The hotel also drew a fashionable crowd back in the day. You might run into assorted film greats a la Francois Truffaut, Jean-Paul Belmondo and actress Sophia Loren. That’s not all: intellectual Jean Paul Sarte was known to show up with Simone de Beauvoir while Picasso also stayed for long, languid meals. In the 1960s, several pieces were stolen out of the dining room (except for a large Chagall work). Recovered a year later in a Marseille train station, Chagall, apparently offended that the burglars left his work behind, famously quipped: “I’m a big-time artist! Why are you not stealing my paintings, too?”
Collecting continues today; a recently installed ceramic piece by Irish artist Sean Scully sits perched by the pool. And keeping within the inn’s origin story, the Roux family continues to operate the place - and while the inn’s heyday has long since ended– the ghosts of artists past continue to beckon visitors.
Little Black Book
STAY:
La Colombe d'Or Place du Général de Gaulle, St-Paul de Vence, 06570, France +33 4-93-32-80-02 (closed end of October until Christmas)
VISIT:
The Fondation Maeght Fondation Maeght, 623 Chem. des Gardettes, 06570 Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France +33 4 93 32 81 63 There’s more art a few minutes from the hotel. Opened in 1964 by Cannes and Paris art dealers Aime and Marguerite Maeught, you’ll also find works by many of La Colombe’s artists.
REQUIRED READING:
Assouline’s La Colombe d'Or, 1993
“Provence has a treasure; it's a Colombe d'Or. It has the precious scent of thyme and nostalgia and the golden colour of olive oil and happy days.”
