Churchill on the Riviera: Winston Churchill, Wendy Reves and the Villa La Pausa Built by Coco Chanel

Churchill on the Riviera by Nancy Smith tells the story of how a villa on the Riviera tied a world leader, a fashion icon, and a world renowned model together with many of the most famous people and events of the twentieth century.

The French couturier Coco Chanel and Texas-born model Wendy Reves had much in common: they were born in poverty and rose to own villa La Pausa and its six acres overlooking the French Riviera.
And both had roses and thorns relationships with Winston Churchill. Chanel met him when she was mistress of his best friend, the Duke of Westminster. After World War II, Churchill saved her from prosecution for being an alleged Nazi spy.
From her viewpoint, she collaborated with Nazis for personal goals: to rescue her nephew from a prisoner of war camp, oversee her investments in Rue Cambon buildings by living nearby at Hotel Ritz, and have part of her financial stake restored in Chanel No. 5. In war-torn Europe, she kept her family and property intact.
Wendy Reves became a New York model who dated Cary Grant, Errol Flynn and Howard Hughes. Then she lived with Churchill’s publisher Emery Reves who bought La Pausa in 1953 and had Churchill as a house guest for a third of each year 1956-58. There he was pampered by Wendy to the annoyance of his wife Clementine who preferred they cruise on Aristotle Onassis’ yacht.
In Emery’s memory, Wendy donated the Reves Center for International Studies to the College of William & Mary as well as 41 Impressionist paintings to the Dallas Museum of Art. La Pausa’s fate hung in limbo until 2015 when it was purchased by the House of Chanel with plans to restore it to Chanel’s original vision.