Chanel's Famed La Pausa Getaway Has Returned As A Cultural Retreat

The French Riviera in the 1920s and '30s was the ultimate playground, a place for the cultural elite to let loose. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald immediately come to mind when recalling that era, as do Man Ray, Rudolph Valentino, Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso. Another key figure, of course, was Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, whose famous uniform of espadrilles, loose jersey trousers, and sailor tops captured the Cote d'Azur's spirit of easygoing, sun-drenched elegance. But not everyone knows that as Chanel was crafting the blueprint for modern luxury through clothes, she was also overseeing the construction of a clifftop villa, La Pausa, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.

Rejecting the fussy and the superfluous, Chanel commissioned architect Robert Streitz to design a structure that stood in deliberate contrast to the region's Mediterranean style. La Pausa was conceived as an almost monastic monument to simplicity: clean lines, pale walls, and a stark, double-flight stone staircase that was a deliberate echo of the convent orphanage where Chanel spent her youth. In this retreat, Chanel didn't just entertain; she curated a rarefied yet surprisingly informal salon. She brought together the era's most electrifying minds, including Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky, Salvador Dalí, and many more, fostering a spirit of creative freedom.

"Gabrielle Chanel collected people," said Yana Peel, Chanel's president of arts, culture and heritage, before dinner with these and other guests. "There was a beautiful opportunity, after restoring La Pausa, to think about how to animate and enliven the space that housed such incredible minds. How would it feel to reconnect around that spirit of Cocteau and Colette?"

La Pausa's new chapter fits into Chanel's broader approach to culture, which is partner-led, long-reaching, and philanthropic in nature. Rather than open its own museum, as other luxury brands have done, the house teams with institutions around the world to help further a variety of initiatives. "There are themes that we are always excited to support, like the love of literature and the advancement of women, because they relate to the DNA of the house in a very authentic way," said Peel. "We want to bring people together who should know each other, who could do something additive that accelerates the ideas that shape culture forward."