Riviera's Famed Provençal Hotel to Re-Open as Apts.

A famed Art Deco hotel on the Côte d'Azur that's been derelict since 1973 is being turned into a luxury apartment building catering to the bon ton. Developer Cyril Dennis is relaunching Le Provençal, on the border between Juan-les-Pins and Cap d'Antibes, where the likes of Coco Chanel, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald once frolicked.

The London Telegraph reports that Dennis is transforming the 45,000-sq.ft. beachside property, built in 1925, into 56 luxury units with 360-degree views, indoor / outdoor pools, private gardens, Porsche kitchens, marble floors, Turkish baths and aquariums. He describes the Provençal as "the last jewel in the Cap d'Antibes," an area where top-drawer villas now go for over $200 million thanks to an influx of superrich oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich.