One of the French Riviera’s Few Beachfront Hotels Is Being Rebuilt
The closed Garden Beach Hotel in Juan-les-Pins will be redeveloped as part of a new platform that also includes a Ritz-Carlton resort outside Lisbon.
Photo: Vidar Nordli Mathisen / Unsplash
A beachfront hotel on the French Riviera is set for a full redevelopment under a new investment platform backed by L Catterton, the private equity firm affiliated with LVMH.
The project centers on the currently closed Garden Beach Hotel in Juan-les-Pins, a 177-key property positioned directly on the water between Antibes and Cannes. On this stretch of valuable coastline, new seafront development is tightly constrained, and most updates are incremental renovations rather than full rebuilds. Reworking an existing beachfront asset at this scale creates one of the few opportunities to introduce new luxury inventory directly on the water.
The Riviera project is just one of two acquisitions launching the platform. The second is Penha Longa Resort, a 204-key Ritz-Carlton property set within the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, about 25 minutes from Lisbon. The resort remains operational and includes two golf courses, a Michelin-starred restaurant, a spa, and a country club across a 540-acre estate.
Together, the deals create a blueprint for how the group intends to operate: full redevelopments in supply-constrained markets like the Riviera, alongside acquisitions of large, established resorts where changes are more likely to come through operations and positioning.
For L Catterton, the acquisitions build on its growing footprint in travel. The firm, which is backed by LVMH and manages roughly $40 billion across its platforms, has invested across multiple parts of the sector, including river cruise operator AmaWaterways and private aviation company Flexjet, where recent capital has been used to scale long-range aircraft and expand internationally.
The new platform is targeting 10 to 15 hotels across Europe and North America, with additional acquisitions expected. The Riviera redevelopment is sure to be the most closely watched, given how rarely new beachfront product comes to market in the region.
