Early October on the Cap d’Antibes: the sea still holds the summer, the light turns to tangerine, and the legendary Art Deco house where F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote shows itself at its most beautiful.
There is a moment on the Côte d’Azur that the summer crowds never see. The yachts have sailed on, the beach clubs exhale, and the Mediterranean, warmed by months of sun, is still soft enough for a long morning swim. The light changes too. It falls lower and warmer across the bay, gilding the pines, the pastel villas and the white facade of the Hotel Belles Rives in Juan les Pins.
This is the season when the house feels most like itself. In 1926, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald rented what was then the Villa Saint Louis, and much of Tender Is the Night breathes the air of this shore. A few years later the villa became a hotel, and it has stayed in the hands of the same family ever since. In early October, in the final weeks before the hotel closes for winter, you share it with the few who know.
Here are eleven reasons why it is worth a weekend.
1. WAKING UP SURROUNDED BY ART DECO
You open your eyes to curved lacquered furniture, polished brass, geometric mirrors and oil paintings from the 1920s showing the good life at la Côte. Belles Rives is not a hotel decorated in the Art Deco style; it was born in that era and has never let it go.
2. A ROOM WITH A VIEW OVER THE BAY OF GOLFE JUAN
Draw back the curtains and the Bay of Golfe Juan lies in front of you, the Îles de Lérins floating on the horizon and the Estérel mountains glowing red in the distance. In autumn the air is clearer than in summer, the haze is gone, and the colours of the bay shift from silver at dawn to deep gold at dusk.
3. A CURATED BOOK SELECTION IN EVERY ROOM
In a house where Fitzgerald wrote, reading is not an afterthought. Each room holds its own small library, a careful selection of novels, photo books and Riviera classics. October is the perfect month to actually use it: fewer distractions, warm afternoons on the balcony, and enough calm to finish a book in one weekend.
4. LUNCH BY THE WATER
Lunch at La Plage Belles Rives, the hotel’s restaurant on the water’s edge, is one of the great pleasures of the coast: grilled fish, Mediterranean vegetables, a chilled glass of Provence rosé, and the sound of small waves just in front of you. Without the high season rush, lunch stretches comfortably into the afternoon.
5. STATIONERY THAT HAS NEVER CHANGED
On the writing desk waits the hotel’s stationery, its design unchanged for decades. It invites something we hardly do anymore: sitting down to write a real letter. A postcard to a friend, a note to yourself, a few lines in the spirit of Scott and Zelda, posted from the Riviera with a stamp and a little nostalgia.
6. FRESH FLOWERS THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE
Fresh bouquets fill the lobby, the salons, the corridors and sometimes the rooms. They are arranged daily and change with the season, and in October they pick up the warmer tones of autumn. It is a small detail, but it gives the whole house the feeling of a private villa where guests are expected.
7. A PRIVATE BEACH FOR MORNING SWIMS
Belles Rives has its own private beach and pontoon directly below the hotel. In early October the sea is still pleasantly warm after the long summer, and the early morning water is calm and clear. Swim out into the bay before breakfast, then walk straight back up into a hot shower. Few luxuries feel this simple.
8. FIRST ON THE WATER SKIS
Juan les Pins is the birthplace of water skiing on the Riviera, and Belles Rives has kept the tradition alive at its own water sports club. Be the first on the water in the early morning, when the bay is still like glass, and carve your first round of the day across the smooth surface. It is the most exhilarating way to wake up on the coast.
9. ART DECO MEETS CONTEMPORARY DESIGN
The interiors combine original Art Deco pieces with contemporary design in a way that feels effortless rather than staged. Look closely, even at something as simple as the carpets, with their graphic patterns and deep colours, and you will find inspiration for your own home. Every corner shows how history and modern taste can share one room.
10. WHY THE LITERARY CLUB IS LEGENDARY
Literature is part of the soul of Belles Rives. Fitzgerald began Tender Is the Night in this very house, and the hotel honours that legacy with the Prix Fitzgerald, a literary prize celebrating works that capture elegance and the spirit of the Riviera. Past laureates include Jeffrey Eugenides, Joyce Carol Oates and Richard Ford, and this June the prize went to Julian Barnes. The literary club continues the tradition: a place where writers, readers and guests meet, and where a book in the sun is considered a perfectly serious occupation.
11. APERITIVO ON THE TERRACE AT THE FITZGERALD BAR
When the sun begins to sink toward the Estérel, there is only one place to be: the terrace of the legendary Fitzgerald Bar. A classic cocktail, the bay turning pink and gold, the first lights of Golfe Juan blinking on across the water. In early October the sunsets come a little earlier and glow a little longer, and this is, without question, the best sundowner on the coast.
BEYOND THE HOTEL: ART ALONG THE COAST
The Côte d’Azur was the studio of the twentieth century, and a weekend at Belles Rives places its great works within an easy drive. In October the museums are calm, the roads are clear, and the light that drew the painters here is at its most beautiful.
Villa Santo Sospir. In 1950 Jean Cocteau came for a short stay and ended up “tattooing” the walls of this villa with frescoes and mythological figures. Visits are by appointment, and stepping inside feels like entering a private poem. Read our IRMASWORLD story on Villa Santo Sospir.
Saint Jean Cap Ferrat
Musée national Marc Chagall. Built around Chagall’s monumental Biblical Message cycle, the museum glows with deep blues and stained glass light. On the way back, stop in Saint Paul de Vence, where Chagall lived and is buried.
36 Avenue du Docteur Ménard, 06000 Nice
Musée Matisse. Set in a seventeenth century Genoese villa among the olive groves of Cimiez, the museum holds one of the most personal Matisse collections in the world, from early paintings to the late cut outs. This summer its major exhibition, Henri Matisse, Yves Saint Laurent: Beauty, Fashion and Happiness, brought together 160 works of haute couture, paintings, drawings and textiles to show how both artists dissolved the boundary between fine and applied art. Combine the museum with Matisse’s Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, his own “masterpiece”, for a full Matisse day.
164 Avenue des Arènes de Cimiez, 06000 Nice
WHY EARLY OCTOBER
In July, Belles Rives is a glamorous stage. In early October, it becomes a refuge. The sea is still warm enough to swim, the sun still strong enough for lunch outdoors, yet the beaches are quiet and the pace of the coast slows to something closer to the Riviera the Fitzgeralds knew. It is the last chapter of the season, and like the best last chapters, it is the one you remember.
“Book a weekend, bring a book, and let the golden hour do the rest.”