Hotel Byblos blends understated luxury with rock 'n' roll legend, welcoming icons from Mick Jagger to Rihanna since 1967. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
Hotel Byblos blends understated luxury with rock 'n' roll legend, welcoming icons from Mick Jagger to Rihanna since 1967. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
Hotel Byblos is one of the most luxurious hotels in France and one of the greatest rock and roll hotels in the world – with the price tag to boot, writes Tim Roxborogh
The first time I heard about Hotel Byblos was from my friend Ronald LaPread of the Commodores. The former bassist for the mega-selling Motown band has lived in New Zealand since the mid-1980s, but mention the word “Byblos” to him, and it’s like it’s 1972 and he’s back in Saint-Tropez again.
There he is, pre-fame, straight out of Alabama, seeing France and Europe for the first time, fresh baguette in hand, sitting on the centuries-old walls of the citadel that’s perched on the hill next to Byblos, watching the sun creep up above Saint-Tropez and the Mediterranean Sea just beyond.
This nightly ritual occurred during the several-week residency the Commodores had secured at Byblos’ underground nightclub Les Caves du Roy, a venue as full of legends and myths and A-list, private-booth debauchery as any in France.
LaPread, Lionel Richie and the rest of the Commodores would enter that A-list world themselves just two-years later when Machine Gun began a record-breaking chart run (Sweet Love, Just To Be Close To You, Easy, Brick House, Three Times A Lady, Still, Sail On, Lady You Bring Me Up, Nightshift etc.) that would last more than a decade.
Richie’s been known to credit Byblos as being his career’s good luck charm, but he’s not alone in being extremely famous and being extremely fond of Byblos.
The Commodores played at Byblos’ legendary nightclub Les Caves du Roy before their global fame. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
It is, after all, where Mick and Bianca Jagger honeymooned in 1971, where a young Jack Nicholson and Cher preferred to party, where Grace Jones once rode a motorbike through Les Caves du Roy, and where everyone from Rihanna to George Clooney to Lady Gaga to Elton John still chooses to stay when in the South of France.
And me.
Hotel Byblos’ central pool overlooks the balcony where Mick Jagger stayed during his honeymoon. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
At Byblos, it doesn’t matter if you’re suffering either imposter syndrome or an over-inflated concept of your own self-importance, you’ll be treated the same.
Which is to say, you’ll be treated like a star whether you’re Timothee Chalamet or Timothy Roxborogh. Or more to the point, you’ll feel a warmth of welcome irrespective of your status. And yet “status” has been part of the Byblos legend since it opened in 1967.
Built by the lovestruck Lebanese billionaire Jean-Prosper Gay-Para in a failed attempt to woo Saint-Tropez’s most famous daughter, actress Brigitte Bardot, Gay-Para had the gumption – and the cash – to bring to life his idealised vision of the most idyllic kind of Lebanese village.
Across 91 rooms and a series of postcard-cute interconnected tiled-roofed buildings that span an entire block, Byblos is just minutes on foot from the boutiques, restaurants, and superyachts of Saint-Tropez.
The hotel’s architecture mimics a picturesque Lebanese village with tiled-roofed buildings and a secluded pool. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
Architecturally ostentatious Byblos is not. Architecturally beautiful; immaculate even, yes. But ostentatious? No.
This is not some domed palace visible for miles around, and maybe that’s why the classy but deep-of-wallet like it so much. It’s where you stay when you don’t want to be snapped by the paparazzi, something I’ve often had to consider.
With less than 100 rooms – all of which are of different proportions and designs, a full 50 of which are suites – Byblos is big enough to get a little lost in on the first couple of days, but small enough to feel secluded and private.
Hotel Byblos was originally built in 1967 to woo actress Brigitte Bardot by Lebanese billionaire Jean-Prosper Gay-Para. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
And no-one who’s not staying at Byblos will be able to see you sunning yourself in that iconic central courtyard swimming pool, the same pool still overlooked by the Jaggers’ old honeymoon balcony.
Likewise, Byblos staff don’t have to tell you that if you did spot other Byblos regulars like Paul McCartney, Beyonce, David Guetta, or even Bill Gates on a sun lounger, it would be whatever the opposite is of refined French chic to snap a photo.
Before you ask, no, I didn’t see any celebs while I was at Byblos, but word was Clooney was returning to his favourite suite just a week after I was there.
George and I would’ve undoubtedly hung out by the pool, ordered our €45 burgers (I’m not kidding, those Byblos burgers are in the ballpark of $80 depending on the exchange rate) and swapped tales of being awesome.
As it stands, I was here to lap up everything Byblos could throw at me, even if that meant eating such an enthusiastically priced burger on my own. It came with fries. And more importantly, it came with Byblos, because I could’ve taken a stroll down the road in an attempt to find somewhere cheaper to dine, but as a hotel-nut on a pilgrimage, Byblos was my reason for being in Saint-Tropez.
So I ate the burger. I also bought the Byblos-branded frisbee and the Byblos-branded multi-adaptor plug. I’d tell you what those cost too but my wife is reading this and she’s only just coming to terms with the burger.
Which raises an obvious question: why do it? Why make the splurge on this hotel some 18,000km away from home when my resume (and bank balance) suggest I’m several Grammys and Oscars short of their usual clientele?
Hotel Byblos blends understated luxury with rock 'n' roll legend, welcoming icons from Mick Jagger to Rihanna since 1967. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
I’ve long said that the best hotels are full of stories. They don’t have to be marbled five-star luxury with exquisite gardens and artworks like Byblos, but it sure is fun if they are. But the stories of why and how they were built, and who has stayed there, and what history those walls have witnessed has always drawn me in.
Byblos successfully walks a tightrope of celebrating its decades-long associations with the showbiz elite without it ever seeming crass, nor as a betrayal of privacy.
For me, to stand on that Jagger balcony, to swim in that pool, to walk into that nightclub (where a reported 1000 bottles of champagne are sold each night during peak summer season) was wild.
From private pools to legendary nightclubs, Hotel Byblos continues to define understated luxury and exclusivity. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
Recreating the walk up the hill to the citadel that LaPread, Richie, and the Commodores would do – though not post several hours of bringing the house down at Les Caves de Roy as was the case for them – was part of the pilgrimage.
I guess I always wanted to be a pop star. For a few days staying at Byblos, it felt like I was.
Fly from Auckland to Nice Cote d’Azur Airport with one stopover with Emirates and Qatar Airways. Saint Tropez is about one hour, 30 minutes by car from the airport.
DETAILS
byblos.com
Tim Roxborogh stayed as a guest of Hotel Byblos. See more at byblos.com.
