The Riviera Set

Mary S. Lovell “The Riviera Set,”  Pegasus Books, 2017, 393pp.

The Riviera Set is the story of those considered elites, especially in the 1930s, who visited and politicked at the newly constructed Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of forty years, from the time of Maxine Elliott, builder of the Château, to the 1960 death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan, who had married and divorced Rita Hayworth. During this period visitors of historical interest were Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, as well as the frequent visits of Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and biographies during his 'wilderness years' in the thirties.  

However, the book's emphasis is more on the women and their impacts than on the men—a very different approach to this time period. Anyone interested in this period of history will find this book entertaining, especially if your interests focus on gossip, affairs, and infidelity, as well as the history of a building.  In many ways this book is more a history of this Château than of the people. The Chateau is currently owned by the King of Saudi Arabia and is inaccessible to the public.

My Notes:

Pg. 216:  From September 7, 1940, London was bombed on fifty-seven consecutive nights; more than forty thousand people were killed and a million homes destroyed.

The book is unusual in that it tells the tale of a place and time and the people who lived there chiefly through the medium of one particular grand villa on the Riviera, le Château de l'Horizon, built by the actress Maxine Elliott. The book necessarily begins by telling Maxine's story as she progresses from Maine to California then to British high society and on to the Riviera where her home is an open house for the beautiful people of the early 20th century. After Maxine's death at the beginning of WWII the house passes through Italian and German armed occupation then to new owners and a renewal of the high life, until the 60's when the Château passed into the hands of Saudi royals who valued their privacy.