A Romanian maître d', a crystal chandelier made for the tsar, and a proprietress who said no to Bill Gates. Le Negresco has stood on the Baie des Anges since 1913 – and remains one of France's few independent palace hotels.
In this story · 6 sections
In the middle of the Promenade des Anglais in Nice rises a white façade with a pink dome and the name LE NEGRESCO in large letters around the top. On the steps stand doormen in colourful uniforms with plumes in their hats. The hotel has stood by the Baie des Anges for more than a hundred years, and it is one of the last hotels of its class in France that is still independent.
Le Negresco
Hotel · Promenade des Anglais
© OpenStreetMap contributors · OpenFreeMap
- Address
- 37 Promenade des Anglais, 06000 Nice
Henri Negresco's palace with the crystal chandelier, Jeanne Augier's art collection and the restaurant Le Chantecler.
01Henri Negresco and the dream of a palace of his own
Henri Negresco was born in 1868 in Romania as Alexandru Negrescu, the son of an innkeeper. He started out as a pastry chef in Bucharest and then worked his way up as a maître d'hôtel at Europe's luxury hotels, where, according to the French Wikipedia, he served the Rockefeller family among others. In Nice, he became manager of the municipal casino and conceived the idea of building his own palace for the wealthiest guests.
He found a 6,500-square-metre plot next to Villa Masséna, and the money came from, among others, the car makers De Dion-Bouton and Alexandre Darracq. The architect was Édouard-Jean Niermans, who was also behind the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz, the Moulin Rouge and the Casino de Paris. The building was constructed in reinforced concrete to make it quicker and cheaper to build. According to legend, the pink dome was modelled on the breast of Negresco's mistress.
02The inauguration in 1913 and the chandelier made for the Tsar
On 4 January 1913, the hotel was inaugurated in the presence of more than seven crowned heads, according to the French Wikipedia. Guests entered an elliptical hall in Louis XVI style beneath an oval glass ceiling. Hanging from it is a Baccarat crystal chandelier, 4.60 metres high, originally commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II. The revolution meant it was never delivered. The glass ceiling, incidentally, is not the work of Gustave Eiffel, as is often claimed, but Niermans' own design.
The hotel had 450 rooms at the time and was modern for its era, with light switches within reach, central vacuuming and a pneumatic tube system that sent letters directly to the rooms.
03The war, the bankruptcy and C'est si bon
The good times lasted just over a year. In 1914 the hotel became a military hospital, and when it was handed back in September 1918, both the furnishings and the clientele were gone. Negresco was ruined, a Belgian hotel company took over in 1920, and that same year he died in Paris, aged 52.
The hotel lived on. On 28 February 1948, during the first jazz festival in Nice, Suzy Delair sang C'est si bon here. Louis Armstrong was in the audience and liked the song. On 26 June 1950 he recorded the American version in New York, and the record became a worldwide hit. Romain Gary writes in Promise at Dawn about how his mother had a stall selling luxury goods in the hotel's corridors.
04Jeanne Augier and the hotel as a museum
In 1957, the hotel was bought by the property developer Jean-Baptiste Mesnage, who had his daughter Jeanne and her husband, the lawyer and politician Paul Augier, run it. Jeanne Augier filled the house with art. According to the French Wikipedia, the collection came to comprise around 6,000 works and objects, from Hyacinthe Rigaud's portrait of Louis XIV to Niki de Saint Phalle's Nana Jaune under the glass roof. The gentlemen's toilet was turned into a Napoleonic field tent, and the Pompéi lounge became a carousel with wooden horses.
She turned down several buyers, among them the Sultan of Brunei and Bill Gates, because she wanted the hotel to remain French. Salvador Dalí was a regular guest and, according to the French Wikipedia, came with his cheetah. On 13 June 2003, the façades, the roofs and the great hall, the Salon royal, were protected as a historic monument.
Jeanne Augier died on 7 January 2019, aged 95. The hotel and her fortune are managed by the Mesnage-Augier-Negresco foundation, which she herself set up in 2009.
05The Negresco today: Le Chantecler, the spa and a new penthouse
Since 2020, a major renovation programme has been under way under the supervision of the Architectes des Bâtiments de France. The architect Jean-Philippe Nuel has designed N Le Spa and the new Jeanne & Paul Penthouse Suite on the sixth floor, in what was Jeanne Augier's private flat. The suite covers 400 square metres with three terraces totalling 200 square metres overlooking the Baie des Anges, according to a press release from March 2026.
The Guide Michelin lists 130 rooms and awards the hotel two keys. The restaurant Le Chantecler, with an 18th-century-style dining room, has one star. The hotel also has its own beach club with a restaurant on the other side of the promenade.
06Around the hotel in Nice
From Le Negresco you can stroll along the sea to the old town and Cours Saleya. More destinations along the coast can be found among our Riviera guides at metromode.co.
