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Hotel Du Palais, Biarritz, Pyrenees Atlantiques
Hotel Du Palais
Formerly the summer mansion of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenia de Montijo, Hotel du Palais is now among the most beautiful hotels in the world, overlooking the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. Owned by the city of Biarritz, the hotel has been permanently restored. Each beautifully designed guest room is air-conditioned and has satellite television. The hotel’s luxury and ageless charm, coupled with its outstanding sports facilities, make the Palais an international center for vacationers and sports enthusiasts alike.
Three restaurants, including La Villa Eugenie, for gastronomic fare; La Rotonde, facing the sea, for lunch or dinner with music; and the informal L’Hippocampe, for lunch around the pool.
Enter the world of the Spa Imperial with Guerlain dedicated to well-being, relaxation and fitness. The most transforming and customized Spa experience, where cutting edge innovation unites with luxury, emotion and sensuality. Outdoor heated seawater pool, two sandy beaches. Sauna, pitching green, and children’s pool. Golf, surfing, horseback riding, deep-sea fishing, tennis, and squash nearby.
Private cabanas around the pool. Hairdresser, boutiques. Eight meeting rooms. Five minutes from Biarritz Airport. Casino nearby. Special golf packages in conjunction with 10 local golf courses are available upon request. Lulled for over a century by the waves of the ocean, the Palais gives itself to its guests, like a long-held promise and an invitation to taste the sweet harmony of this region, where the gentle caress of time fades into the magic of the moment.
Its memory, that of the heart, lives on in every grove, in the graceful contours of its architecture, and hovers on the wainscoting of its salons. It perpetuates the image and souvenir of Eugenia de Montijo, Napoleon III’s wife, who, in 1855, with the wave of her imperial wand, gave rise to the « Villa Eugenie » from a sandy hill overlooking the sea near the lighthouse. Its style is that of an era, the Second Empire, during which the reputation of Biarritz as Queen of Beaches and the Beach of Kings was established.
In the middle of the 19th Century, Biarritz, located between the Basque and Gascony regions, was no more than a little fishing port on the shores of the Atlantic with three thousand inhabitants. Nearby, the waters of the ocean were divided between French and Spanish, at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains which Louis XIV chose to ignore some two centuries earlier.
Not surprisingly, over the years many prestigious visitors have fallen under the spell of this place. Queen Hortense, wife of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, was won over by the wild beauty of the sea and the charm of this site in 1807. Others such as Victor Hugo, on a romantic holiday with his dear Juliette Drouet in the 1830’s, was so enthusiastic that he made a selfish wish that Biarritz would never become fashionable.
The real « invention » of Biarritz can be credited to a pretty, young woman. In 1835, a nine-year-old girl, accompanied by her mother, La Comtesse de Montijo, a great Spanish lady, spent her vacation on the Basque Coast. Mischievous, independent, she loved playing on the beach with friends of her age, fishing shrimp on the rocks, exploring the rugged footpaths of the Atalaye, and swimming in the old port with the children of the region. She would never forget her vacations here and her love for the surrounding landscape. Her name was Eugenia and she would make the glory of Biarritz.
In 1852, Eugenia met the Prince-President, who became Napoleon III a year later. He fell in love with and married her. Henceforth, she never missed the opportunity to persuade her husband to come along to her favorite vacation spot, the scene of her childhood games. In 1854, Napoleon purchased a plot of land overlooking the sea and, without delay, he began constructing a summer palace. It was built in record time - ten months. This was to be « La Villa Eugenie », which would later become the Hotel du Palais.
For sixteen years, with the exception of only 1860 and 1869, the imperial couple never missed its rendezvous with Biarritz. And in its wake, all of the most famous names of the era followed. The Biarritz locals, mesmerized, witnessed the successive arrival of Queen Isabelle of Spain, the King of Wurtenberg, Léopold II of Belgium, the crowned heads of Portugal, Prince Jérôme Bonaparte, Prince Albrecht of Bavaria, Prince Walewski, the Princes of Metternich, authors Prosper Mériméé and Octave Feuillet, not to mention the illustrious Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, who had a liaison with the charming Princesse Orloff.
From this time on, festivities followed one after another, a succession of balls, well-groomed picnics, sparkling receptions, fireworks, and boat excursions all punctuated by diplomatic meetings. Bought in 1880 by La Banque Parisienne, it was transformed into a casino, then in 1893, into the Hotel du Palais. This was « La Belle Epoque » with all its ostentatiousness, every bit as glittering as before, but with a new retinue of royalty : Queen Victoria, Edouard VII and his brother, the Duke of Connaught, Princess Yourievsky, the morganatic widow of Czar Alexandre II ( the famous « Tatia » who would later light up the silver screen in many films), the King of Hanover, Queen Marie-Amélie of Portugal, the Archduke Victor of Hapsbourg, King Oskar II of Sweden and Empress Elizabeth of Austria (better known as « Sissi »).
On February 1, 1903, the Hotel du Palais was consumed by flames. It was reconstructed with the addition of a wing. It was here in 1906 that King Alphonse XIII of Spain met the woman he would marry a year later, Princess Ena Battenberg.
In 1922, the Marquis of Arcangues organized the Second Empire Ball in the sumptuous Rotonde of the Hotel du Palais, presided over by King Alphonse XIII of Spain and the Shah of Persia, the opulence of which marked the annals of time. Once again, all of Europe danced in the salons of the Hôtel de Palais. Kings and princesses were seen less often, the celebrities of the day included Rostand, Loti, Ravel, Sarah Bernhardt, or Stravinsky, and soon after Guitry, Chaplin, Cocteau or Hemingway. The parade of crowned heads gave way, little by little, to a new and more varied set, that of the arts, literature, fashion and finance.
The life of a great hotel is as susceptible to the jolts of history as the ticker of the stock market. In the heady adventure of the Hotel du Palais, which for over a century has closely mirrored that of Biarritz, three dates darken the golden portrait of its carefree years: 1929 and the crash of Wall Street, 1936 and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, 1940 and the German Occupation.
By the 1950’s, good times returned, and nothing beat stronger in the hearts of men than the desire to live. A predilection for celebrating resurfaced and the heady adventure of Biarritz took up where it left off. The tradition of sparkling, prestigious evenings would find its natural backdrop at the Hotel du Palais, where from 1950 until today, a succession of fireworks and « fetes » ensued including, among others, the Goya Ball, the Edouard VII Ball, the night of the « Rayon Vert », or that of the « Oiseau Bleu », the « Gala des Années Folles », as well as the new Empire Ball in the presence of Prince Napoleon.
A superb swimming pool was built and inaugurated by the stars of the day, Gary Cooper, Frank Sinatra and Jayne Mansfield. The great names of Spain returned to their preferred playground, as well as the couple who would remain loyal to Biarritz until their last breath, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Those who have a taste for travel, comfort, and quality, and a fascination for history, prestige and tradition, will always find a home at the Hotel du Palais. One of the rare European palaces to have retained its soul, it can look forward to a future that lives up to the legend.