Mick Jagger in front of the Byblos Hotel
while they premiered Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, The last Tango in Paris , The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie, Saturday night Fever Y the devil on wheels , the actors of the 70s spent the summer days away from the spotlights of the set letting themselves be dazzled by the turquoise blue of the sea and the chic anonymity of the coves of a small fishing village that an explosive blonde made fashionable at the end of the 50s .
Jack Nicholson in the long endless nights of Byblos
Saint-Tropez was a party that prolonged the hippyism and free love from the 60s, with new accents of integral rock, glam rock, and even punk. In its picturesque port -surrounded by houses with colored facades, the typical neighborhood of La Ponche and the Plaza de Les Lices- all the beautiful people of that time docked on their luxurious yachts, who came, in a trance, at the call of the ** Byblos , the most famous hotel and the one that has housed the most famous for 50 years**.
Created in the image and likeness of the port of Byblos in Lebanon, born of love . the of Jean-Prosper Gay-Para, a multi-millionaire Lebanese hotelier in love with Brigitte Bardot, that he wanted to dedicate a Taj Mahal to her in the South of France. A beautiful story cut short by the Six-Day War which, in 1967, forced the lover to return to Beirut and sell his hotel to Sylvain Floirat, a brilliant businessman and great-grandfather of Antoine Chevanne, who would take over the management of the Floirat hotel group in 2006.
This is what the famous hotel looks like today
Fortunately, many other love stories (some impossible, like the one with Mick Jagger and Bianca Pérez Moreno de Macias , who after her wedding at Byblos played "my marriage ended the same day as my wedding" one of his most famous phrases) have had a place among its Andalusian tiles, its wrought-iron balconies and stairs, its Madras curtains with gold threads, its colored facades, its garden of bougainvillea, olive, jasmine and palm trees, its swimming pool around a central square in the shade of a hundred-year-old olive tree imported from Lebanon.
The long list of famous clients and the night parties held at the Byblos hotel they have elevated him to the category of myth of the Côte d'Azur since its inauguration on May 27, 1967. Their godmothers were Mireille Darc and Brigitte Bardot and, attracted by these spontaneous public relations, Francoise Sagan, Juliette Greco, Eddy Mitchell, Paco Rabanne, Michel Polnareff They set foot at some point in this mecca of free love and subsequent tourist pijerío.
Brigitte in Saint-Tropez
In the nineties, for the so-called white evenings of the record producer Eddie Barclay -parties that forced attendees to dress in White color - passed Jack Nicholson, Barbra Streisand, Elton John and Rod Stewart.
top models Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Giselle Bundchen have enjoyed grand evening receptions here, as have other house guests such as Paris Hilton, Penelope Cruz, Kylie Minogue, Boris Becker and David Beckham . A coming and going of glittering stars that saw how that little fishing village fed the myth with its stay.
Jack Nicholson and Cher in the long white nights of Byblos
This Provencal village of narrow houses, promoted to the category of Palace in 2012, it has an area of 17,000 square meters. Its balconies and buildings at different levels, designed by architects Christian Auvrignon, Philippe Monnin and Philippe Siccardon , today celebrate their golden anniversary with great alliances that bear the signature of Audemars Piguet , which has launched two limited editions of its Royal Oak Offshore dedicated to the Byblos hotel, Missoni Home, Goyard, Dom Perignon (with five limited editions of Methuselah, each personifying one of the five decades), Sisley and Roll Royce.
But what makes this place, which became fashionable in the late 1950s, continue to be visited by Hollywood stars and aspiring to be part of international jet . For some, it will be the fact of finding a place as luxurious as it is comfortable, where demand and excellence are the object of worship, where everything is discretion, calm and voluptuousness.
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore
For others, it will be for the nostalgic pleasure of reproducing the nightly ritual that has been repeated for decades. After a day of shopping, walks around the Ponche neighborhood , **tapa in the Café de Paris ** or relax in one of the turquoise coves and wait for the sunset in the club 55 -an exclusive beach bar that began as the caravan for catering during the filming of Y Dios creat a la mujer, directed by Roger Vadim , the then husband of a very young Brigitte Bardot-, night owls face the difficult task of choosing between the temple of the night of Les Caves du Roy , the Byblos hotel disco, or the VIP Room night club, also frequented by super VIP celebrities, singers and actors.
Aerial view of the hotel
But even the immortals have basic needs like eating, and even dinner; although in this context, basic would not be the most appropriate adjective… In 2002 the spoon, Alain Ducasse's restaurant that eleven years later would become the Rivea, a gastronomic table of products from the Riviera orchestrated by Alain Ducasse and his disciple the Chef Vincent Mallard , with creations ranging from small pizzas, risotto, vegetables, tumaca bread, delicious fish, with a marinated sea bream and aubergines in olive oil as a signature dish, and meats.
Even immortals eat...
Next to the swimming pool, and in the shade of the lemon trees, the restaurant B offers, in addition to breakfasts, cocktails, lunches and snacks , an original concept, Byni'z , which livens up dinner: a waltz of small plates and snacks inspired by mezze, antipasti, tapas and others luxury finger food.
And it is that the perfect combination of luxury and privacy make it a magnet for great travelers, the curious and people who are willing to live an experience that goes beyond money and classic concepts of elegance.
Its 91 rooms are personally decorated by Mireille Chevanne, with the most exquisite taste and the most luxurious materials. The smallest of its rooms offers more than 30 square meters, while the minimum standard required for a rating of 5 stars is 18 . The suites have a terrace or are distributed in duplexes and range from 60 to 180 square meters . The closest thing to feeling really at home.
Life at the Byblos pool
There is still another pleasure to discover. The Byblos Spa by Sisley It was the first that the high-end cosmetics firm opened in the world in 2007. Since then, this sanctuary of personal care has pampered its guests far and wide with five cabins, a hamman, a patio and a Lebanese lounge, rebuilt piece by piece, all brought from Lebanon.
Spa Byblos by Sisley
At the end of September, the Gulf of Saint-Tropez welcomes the best classic and modern sailboats in The Voiles of Saint-Tropez , the last of the great regattas in the Mediterranean which, after the competitions in Antibes, Barcelona, Menorca, Sardinia, Monaco or Cannes, brings the season to an end.
Guests, famous or anonymous, who have had the infinite privilege of sharing a bit of history and, of course, of hedonism squared.