AMB Cote d'Azur

Origins of Château La Napoule
Turning back the clock, we find that some 2,000 years ago, the site was once a Roman settlement. Like elsewhere along the coastline, the Romans would establish themselves along strategic positions, and that of La Napoule was certainly one. We hear no more about this site until the Counts of Villeneuve were forced to flee from their ancestral home, Château d'Avignonnet following its destruction by the war-prone lord, Raymond de Turenne, in 1347. Making their way to La Napoule they constructed a new castle upon the remains of the antique Roman fortifications. But these were difficult times and outbreaks of war not uncommon in the region, and the château was soon pillaged by the Austrians and later the Piémontais. Though it would be partly dismantled by the troops of the Duke of Savoy it was practically demolished during the French Revolution. All in all it would be destroyed and rebuilt eight times. What little remained would be purchased much later by traditional glass workers who reconstructed the central part of the Château in order to install ovens and workshops.

We then journey forward to the First World War to find that the Château is now in the possession of the noted Irish-English society beauty, Mary Theresa Olivia Cornwallis-West, better known as Daisy, Princess of Pless. Her fortunate situation in life brought her into endless contact with royalty and engendered travels around the worlds such as India, Egypt, Germany, Switzerland and Southern France. One can only presume that it must have been on one of her journeys to this region that she found and fell in love with the ramshackle remains and exquisite sea views, and decided to make them her own.

So it was that when Henry and Marie Clews needed to escape from Paris and the harsh rigours of the War (I shall explain more about this episode of their life later in the article), they decided to journey south for peace, warmth and rest. They stayed first in the Hotel du Cap d'Antibes for one month but, upon finding a land of sunshine, clear blue skies and orange blossoms, they contacted an estate agent and started house-hunting along the coast. Through him they hear about the château, though now abandoned by the princess with only a guardian left to manage the estate, and they set off to visit it.

One can only imagine what La Napoule was like in 1917, but from all accounts it was a desolate village with only sand dunes, umbrella-pines and rugged coastline; a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Paris. Yet, stepping out of their horse-drawn carriage and viewing the property for the first time, they both knew it was something special and would change their lives forever.

They rented the Château for the summer with an option to buy if they really liked it; they bought it a year later. Once they had done so they longed to restore it to its former medieval style and so, no sooner had they moved in than they began their massive reconstruction. While Marie assumed the role of architectural designer, Henry created his own style of imaginative sculpture for every new element of the renovation. The first stone laid was for Henry's studio which would eventually lead to the construction of a new west wing connecting the central house to the Saracen Tower. A stone cutting facility was set up in the gardens and twenty stonemasons were hired to shape the red and green porphyry mined from the Clews' quarry in the nearby Estérel Mountains.

Activity teemed around the courtyard between the old Saracen towers as Italian stonecutters set up their workshop under a shed to shelter themselves from rain and sun. Stones were piled all about and a narrow-gauge railway was set up to help transport them from place to place. The Château and courtyard became one giant studio workshop, which horrified the Clews' family, friends and occasional visitors from America who had expected to find them surrounded by green lawns, marble fountains, butlers and cordon-bleu chefs in keeping with their status in life.

After the discovery of the foundations of an inner courtyard wall, the couple recreated a new wall, two meters wide, exactly in its place. A new tower inspired by the two medieval towers was added to the western sea-front. The mansard roof and tall chimneys were removed and crenellated turrets built in their place. A new east wing hosting a grand exhibition space was added, and eventually horse stables along the eastern perimeter were converted into new galleries with glass and steel skylights imported from New York.

The Château's restoration continued for the remaining years of Henry's life until he died in 1937. Yet for another twenty-two years Marie continued guiding the restoration until her own death in 1959. Before we set foot in the courtyard and, further still, inside the Château, we need to better understand the force that drove the Clews to make the Château such a centre-piece of their life and the creative art it would inspire. Inscribed above the castle's front door are the words “Once Upon a Time”. These symbolic words were not just chiselled out of stone by Henry for Marie Clews but intended for all those who passed under it: a return to another time and another world. By believing in that world you also believed in them.