Sitting at the tip of the Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat peninsula since 1908, the Belle Époque palace that became the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat has always operated at the intersection of fantasy and geography — a white stucco facade five storeys tall, its curved entrance pavilion and wrought-iron balconies descending through seven hectares of Aleppo pine and sculpted box hedge toward the Mediterranean. Four Seasons assumed management in 2009 and oversaw a renovation that kept the building's architectural identity — elaborately plastered cornices, arched clerestory windows with leaded glass detailing, herringbone oak parquet laid across the main salon — while threading in the kind of quiet contemporary comfort the brand requires. Emerald Murano glass chandeliers hang above the bar, their colour borrowed from the surrounding pine canopy, and a marble counter runs the length of the room in a gesture that belongs more to the present than to 1908. The 73 rooms and suites carry a palette of chalk white and Provençal blue, the boiserie panelling painted out in pale grey to give the traditional forms a lighter register. Blue-and-white ginger jar lamps and Louis XV-style fauteuils in powder blue linen furnish bedrooms whose French doors open onto iron balconies with unbroken sea views. Below the main building, a competition-length pool is cut into the limestone terracing above the waterline, the Cap Ferrat lighthouse marking the headland beyond — a view that has changed very little since Somerset Maugham kept a villa just along the shore.

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