QUEEN OF RESORTS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 93, 21 April 1933, Page 14

QUEEN OF RESORTS

A BID FOR BIARRITZ

A bold bid to maintain Biarritz in its position as queen •df the French Atlantic coast is being made by M. Henri Lillaz, a deputy of the Basses Pyrenees Department in which the town is situated. He has concluded contracts by virtue'of which he becomes proprietor of the Hotel dv Palais, the Hotol d'Angleterre, the Hotel dv Casino, the Belle Vue Casino, the Casino Municipal, and the Bayonnc Bull Eing. Other properties concerned in tho deal include certain restaurants , and bars which are among the, best known to frequenters of Biarritz. M. Lillaz, when asked about the transaction, said that he had paid over £300,000 for his new property. When it was suggested that it was not perhaps a propitious time for the purchase of largo hotels and casinos, he declared that the tourist industry was about to come into its own again. He feels'sure that ho can restore to Biarritz the prosperity and popularity it' enjoyed when tho preference of King Edward VII made it one of the brightest and most favoured^ resorts in the country., In earlier days it was .patronised by the Emperor Napoleon 111 and the Empress Eugenic, while recently the Prince of Wales has visited it occasionally. During his negotiations M. Lillaz has been assisted by Mr. Clement Hobson,an English resident in Paris, who introduced the matter to him. Mr. H6bson has had a wide- experience in the direction of well-known restaurants and pleasure haunts such as Ciro's and the Ambassadeurs. He will take charge of the restaurant's and bars, while the casinos will be controlled by M. Lartigue, manager of the Pau Casino, who enjoyed a great reputation both in Paris and in New York. M. Lillaz, having acquired the-pro-perties, does not intend to run any of them himself. But he is now in conversation with a powerful syndicate of French hotel owners with a view to their taking over the management of his Biarritz hotels.