The Fitzgeralds' summer

In 1925 F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald came to the Cap to stay with their friends Gerald and Sara Murphy, and soon rented Villa Saint-Louis, a house with its own beach. Fitzgerald began the early chapters of Tender Is the Night there. A line of his, engraved in marble, now hangs in the hall.

A family hotel

In 1929 Boma Estène and his wife Simone, from an old Antibes hotel family, bought the villa and turned it into a hotel. The hotel describes it as the first on the Riviera built right on the shoreline, when fashion favoured the hillsides. Their granddaughter Marianne Estène-Chauvin later opened it all year and had it listed in France's inventory of twentieth-century heritage; her son Antoine now presides over the group.

Staying here

There are 43 rooms and suites, renovated and full of light, most with balconies over the sea or the gardens and holm oaks of the Cap. The rooms are accessible to guests with reduced mobility, and there are family rooms, suites and villas.

• La Passagère, the Michelin-starred restaurant, first starred in 2016
• La Plage Belles Rives, the beach restaurant, for lunch and dinner
• The Fitzgerald Bar, from midday until late
• A private beach with a jetty and water-skiing club

The view

The terrace looks out across calm water to the Estérel hills and the Lérins Islands. It is a view that explains, better than any history, why people keep coming back.