Why did the Negresco become the landmark of the Promenade des Anglais?

Where do the grand hotels of the Promenade des Anglais come from?

In the 19th century, Nice became a winter destination. Winter visitors, English at first, then Russian and from all over Europe, travelled south to the Mediterranee to escape the northern mists. The Promenade des Anglais, laid out along the seafront, owes its very name to them.

To house this clientele, the town filled with large hotels at the turn of the century. The Belle Epoque gave the Nice seafront its silhouette: pale façades, rotundas, domes. People did not yet come for the summer; the season, then, was winter.

What has the Negresco told since 1913?

The Negresco opened in 1913 on the Promenade des Anglais, on the initiative of Henri Negresco, who wanted an establishment worthy of the wealthy winter visitors of the Cote d'Azur. The First World War interrupted the season shortly after; the hotel has survived the century.

Two images sum it up. Its pink dome first, whose design is traditionally attributed to the influence of Gustave Eiffel, and which marks the silhouette of the seafront. Its Baccarat crystal chandelier next, suspended in the grand salon, which belongs to the stories the town passes down.

The building is listed as a historic monument. Yet it remains a working hotel, which is uncommon: a monument that continues to be inhabited, season after season.

Why does the façade of the Palais de la Méditerranée matter so much?

In 1929, a little further along the Promenade des Anglais, the Palais de la Méditerranée opened, backed by the American financier Frank Jay Gould. Its Art Deco façade, with its bas-reliefs, gave the seafront a second register: after the domes of the Belle Epoque, the geometry of the roaring twenties.

The history of the place has been turbulent, between closure and reconstruction. Its façade has been preserved, and it is what one still passes today. In Nice, buildings have sometimes been lost; a façade has rarely been allowed to disappear.

What can be seen of this history from 107 Promenade des Anglais?

Our family has been established at 107 Promenade des Anglais since 1999, and I pass the Negresco more often than I could count. From there, the Promenade reads like a frieze: the winter visitors' grand hotels, the Art Deco façades, then the buildings that have grown between them. Each holds its place in the same line facing the sea.

These grand hotels established something lasting: the idea that the Nice seafront is an address, and not merely a landscape. The neighbouring buildings have inherited this. It is this history that La Gazette has told since 2005, window by window.