CARLTON STORY

The story began in 1880. Disappointed to see the grass burn under the Cannes firy sunrays, the Renshaw brothers, multiple winners of Wimbledon, decided to cover the court with a red powder, resulting from the crushing of terracotta pots: the clay was thus born.

It is on this now legendary surface that the final of the Cannes tournament was played on February 17, 1926. The match, followed by the elite of the time on the central Carlton, was one of the most anticipated in the history of women’s tennis.

Best European player, French player Suzanne Lenglen, known as “La Divine”, faced her American rival: Helen Wills, rising star and the only one able to challenge her.

The stakes were high: Lenglen came out of 181 consecutive victories. The American fought an epic battle, returning blow after blow to the French.

After an invalidated match point, however, Lenglen ended up winning 6-3, 8-6, showing extraordinary resilience. Here name went down in history.

Between 1870 and 1875, Cannes was an elitist city that received 800 families every winter, the vast majority of them British. At their request, the city of Cannes built the Croisette, which was completed in 1872.

To accommodate this clientele, the Carlton Cannes, built between 1911 and 1913, was equiped 6 floors and 250 luxurious accomodations with adjoining bathrooms and living rooms, a rare luxury for the time.

However, the hotels in Cannes were closed in the summer; the rich clientele favoring Normandy for the warm season.

In 1928, the Carlton nevertheless decided, for the first time, to open in the summer. The success was immediate. All hotels in Cannes came to follow the example.

In 1930, the hotel obtained from the city the concession of a plot in front of the hotel, on the the famous “Bains de la Croisette” site.

The first private beach in Cannes was born: the Carlton Beach Club. Others came after.

The opening of the Carlton was hailed as a great event. In 1913, the magazine “La Construction Moderne” explained to its readers that the Carlton decoration, the luxury hotel industry’s flagship, was made with a “note of distinction, without profusion of ornaments, and that it included all the good taste and good tone that befits an elite clientele.”

If the design imagined by Dalmas, its architect, expresses his classical training and his sensitivity to French architecture, the Carlton is said to be “classicism without academicism, sobriety without dryness, order without boredom.”

But it was on August 29, 1989 that the ultimate consecration came: the classification as a Historical Monument. Its exterior architecture is thus now protected: its facade, its roofs and domes, as well as many of its interior spaces, such as its main hall, its Grand Salon and two of its staircases.

Already a legend, the Grande Dame de la Croisette thus definitly enters history.

On November 3 and 4, 2011, the Croisette hosted not the stars of the 7th art, but the twenty-five Heads of State and Government of the main countries of the world, who came to attend the G20.

Accustomed to playing a key role in international political history, the Carlton had the chance to welcome a prestigious guest: Barack Obama himself!

During his stay, the President of the United States decided to perpetuate the tradition and chose to stay on the 5th floor, in the same suite as Mr. Harvey, the American representative who came in 1922 for the very first League of Nations conference which took place at the Carlton.

Nothing was left to chance to celebrate this unique moment. In the Grand Salon, illuminated by a thousand lights, the 150 guests at the Centenary luncheon were invited to dive into the Grande Dame’s memories.

After much research to find her trace, it is in the presence of “Lady Butter”, 88 years old, granddaughter of Grand Duke Michel, that the hotel Centenary was celebrated. She was 18 months old when she first stayed at the Carlton.

In impeccable French, she delivered with emotion some anecdotes about her family, who came to spend the winter there, the hotels being all closed in summer at that time. For her, “Cannes is the Carlton, just like the Eiffel Tower is Paris.”

Gilles Jacob, president of the Cannes Film Festival, said on this occasion: “I went down to the Carlton fifty-two times for three weeks, that is to say five years of my life. I feel like I’ve been there since kindergarten and learned to read on the room service menu.”