page_title: Château de l'Horizon
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Château de l'Horizon / History
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Rita Hayworth and Aly Khan at their wedding reception at Chateau de L'Horizon in Vallauris Snipe on reverse side reads in part as follows: RITA HAYWORTH AND ALI [sic] KHAN WED CANNES, FRANCE: Prince Ali Khan and his brife, actress Rita Hayworth, stroll hand-in-hand in the garden of Ali's sumptuous Château de l'Horizon at champagne reception which followed their double ring ceremony in Vallauris, near Cannes.
context_page_description: The château de l'Horizon is a Modernist villa that was constructed in 1932 by the American architect Barry Dierks for the actress Maxine Elliott. The villa is located on shores of the Golfe-Juan at Vallauris.
  The residence has received a number of distinguished guests, including Sir Winston Churchill, who was a regular guest between 1934 and 1940. Prince Ali Khan purchased the villa in 1948 and his marriage to Rita Hayworth was celebrated here the following year.
context_section_description: In 1932, Maxine Elliott (1868–1940) built directly on coast of the Golfe-Juan an imposing villa, which the magazine Punch later described as "a white palace set on the water."  Endowed with an acute business sense and a passion for society, the actress spent $350,000 at the time for this structure anchored on the rocks with its private port.  Elliott named the villa "château de l'Horizon."
  In her new summer residence Maxine Elliott received many celebrities of the day such as Lloyd George and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Sir Winston Churchill came regularly on vacation to paint and to finish his biography of the Duke of Marlborough.  In his memoires, Noël Coward recounted the dinners and the arrivals of guest by boat on the jetty of the villa.
  Elsa Maxwell claimed – albeit without providing sources – that on the eve of the Second World War, the villa served as a meeting place for Anthony Eden, British minister of Foreign Affairs, and his French and Italian homologues.
  Maxine Elliott died in 1940. After the war, the villa was rented for a time by Rosita Winston, wife of the American millionaire Norman K Winston. She maintained the social traditions established by Elliott by giving dinner parties of 20 to 30 guests, which included Greta Garbo, Jack L. Warner or Maurice Chevalier. Her husband maintained, however, not to have "the faintest idea who they are or how they got invited. The trouble is that they all know each other so damn well."
  In 1948, the villa was purchased by Prince Ali Khan, the eldest son and heir to the Aga Khan III. Under the leadership of Elsa Maxwell, international café society as well as the "aristocracy of the French Riviera" continued to make the villa a center of attention for the press. On May 27, 1949, after the prince married Rita Hayworth at the Vallauris town hall, a lavish reception was held at the villa: the swimming pool was perfumed with eau de Cologne with the initial of the couple – made from flowers – floating on the surface of the water.  After the death of Ali Khan on May 12, 1960 in an automobile accident, his body was temporarily interred in the villa's garden while waiting for the construction of a mausoleum in Syria (the remains were only transferred from the villa in 1972).
  In 1979, the heir to the Saudi throne, the future King Fahd, acquired the villa  The Saudi royal family kept adding new buildings to the original one, changing thoroughly its appearance.
caption: Rita Hayworth and Prince Aly Khan at their wedding reception in the garden of the Château de l'Horizon (May 27, 1949)
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