A few weeks ago, the bas-relief by Fernand Léger installed on a patio wall collapsed. An expert from the Fernand Léger National Museum, in Biot (Alpes-Maritimes), a nearby village, was sent to his bedside. The verdict fell, ruthless: the work had to be urgently dismantled and sent for restoration for at least two years. François Roux, the director of La Colombe d’or, flatly refused. It was out of the question for him to deprive his clients of it for so long. And he himself is too attached to this Woman with red parrotacquired from his grandfather in 1952, who has followed him since birth.
Along with César’s giant thumb posted in the lobby, Calder’s cell phone by the pool, and the Picasso hanging in the dining room, this ceramic mural is one of some 180 nuggets on display throughout La Colombe d’or. Other rooms are kept in a reserve, waiting in turn to become part of the common areas or one of the 24 rooms and suites of this unusual “inn”.
“What is an inn today? », asks François Roux, who has been watching over the place since 1996. He grew up within these walls, has always worked there, but doesn’t know if La Colombe is more an inn, a chic family pension or a hotel-restaurant. In the end he decides: “It’s an unusual place. »
Housing, paint and napkin holder
Atypical, hybrid, unclassifiable, and this, from the very beginning, more than a hundred years ago. In 1920, Paul Roux, the son of a farmer in his thirties, opened a Provençal guinguette, To Robinson, at the entrance to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a splendid medieval village in the Nice hinterland. In the evening we dance on the terrace and sometimes we argue, a little too often.
Once married and father of little Francis, Paul Roux transformed the place into a peaceful inn, which he baptized La Colombe d’or. “It is not known where this name comes from, perhaps from the dove of peace, says Francois Roux. And “golden” because it was fashionable to add that at the time…” This name, which sounds “prestigious”, then designates a simple hut consisting of one floor and three bedrooms, occasionally inhabited by painters attracted by the southern light.
Paul Roux opened a painting school in the 1930s and wrote on the pediment of his establishment: “Here we come on foot, on horseback or by painting”. Sometimes the boarders offered a painting to the patron and his wife Baptistine (known as “Titine”), in exchange for room and board.
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