Inside La Colombe d'Or
In 1920, the café “Chez Robinson” was a hotspot for weekend dancing for the locals, which led to owner Paul Roux, a Provençal farmer but very much a lover of the arts, to open a small inn called La Colombe d’Or. It could only accommodate three guests but soon enough artists were exchanging paintings for a meal or night’s stay with the freethinking owner, who had an instinctive eye for art.
Over the next 20 years, Paul and his wife Baptiste (known as “Tintine”) developed close relationships with other “thinkers and artists” who’d moved to the south of France, and the inn started to expand with their help while still maintaining a secluded yet unpretentious atmosphere. Art was fashionable, and La Colombe d’Or was a private runway for Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall. In 1959, Tintine came downstairs one morning to find the walls bare—all the paintings had been stolen (and had never been appraised). The only masterpiece left was a Chagall, as it was apparently too large to fit through the window. This produced the famous line from Chagall “I’m a big-time artist! Why are you not stealing my paintings, too?”
Today, La Colombe d'Or is a 30-room inn and restaurant presided over by François Roux, the third-generation manager, and his wife Danièle, and has welcomed big names from Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill to Elton John and Hugh Grant. The famille Roux’s extraordinary sense of style would have delighted Pablo, Georges, and Henri, and their collection continues to expand, most recently with a large poolside ceramic piece by the Irish artist Sean Scully. Set under timeless fig trees, a luncheon table in the restaurant terrace is lorded over by a ceramic Léger mural of a dove under the shade of fig trees, while the pool is an idyllic garden bower, complete with a Calder stabile (if you’re wondering why there are so many Calders, he was apparently in love with François’s mother), and there’s even a Braque by the fireplace in the bar.
While the Provençal menu hasn’t changed much in 30 years, and its prices are as fabulous as the art collection (can you ever see too many Picassos?), a meal here is a must. So incredible is the experience that the restaurant—a favorite of stars including Francis Ford Coppola and Drew Barrymore—won the Leading Culture Destinations 2015 (“the Oscars of the museum world”) in the category for Best Art Experience in a Hotel. Head upstairs to your room—you’ll have to dodge a Calder mobile (painted red with the artist’s permission, to set it off from the white walls)—to be bewitched by Louis XIII armoires, medieval four-posters, wood beams, Provençal borders, and painted murals; take a look out your window and you might find yourself staring at a roof of tiles painted every shade of the rainbow. While there are two annexes to the main house, all the guest rooms are flawless in taste (note that you can enjoy dinner or a drink here without being a hotel guest). Henri Matisse once called La Colombe d’Or “a small paradise”—and who are you to argue?
