Riviera Dreaming

Love and War on the Côte d'Azur
Step inside the Riviera’s most glamorous villas and discover the real lives that shaped the Côte d’Azur’s golden age.

Step inside the Riviera’s most glamorous villas and discover the real lives that shaped the Côte d’Azur’s golden age.

In 1926 Barry Dierks, a young American architect, arrived in Paris and fell in love with France. With his partner, an ex-officer in the British Army, he built a white, flat-roofed Modernist masterpiece that rested on the rocks below the Esterel, with views across the Mediterranean. They called it Le Trident.

Le Trident transformed their fortunes. As word spread, commissions poured in from across the Riviera’s social world. Dierks and Sawyer designed more than seventy of the coastline’s most recognisable houses, including Somerset Maugham’s La Mauresque, Jack Warner’s Villa Aujourd’hui, Maxine Elliott’s Château de l’Horizon, and the Marquess of Cholmondeley’s Villa Le Roc.

These villas became stages for Jazz Age decadence, intimate dramas, artistic breakthroughs, and the upheavals of war, revealing a Riviera far richer and stranger than its postcard image.

Bringing together vivid personalities, architectural insight and richly researched history, Riviera Dreaming captures a world where creativity, reinvention and intrigue collided on the edge of the Mediterranean.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

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