Hôtel Martinez
The Hôtel Martinez is an Art Deco hotel on the Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes. It was opened on 20 February 1929 by Emmanuel Michele Martinez, son of Baron Giovanni Martinez and Giuseppa Labiso Costanza, members of a noble Italian family of Spanish origins from Palermo. Karan Singh, the crown prince of Jammu and Kashmir, was born there in 1931.
History
In 1927, Emmanuel Michele Martinez, a manager of hotels in London and Paris and the director of the Cannes Luxury Hotel Association, decided to build his own hotel on the Côte d'Azur. Using the connections his family had with nobility, Martinez bought the "Villa Marie-Therese" on September 22, 1927, from Alfonso XII. The Hôtel Martinez opened in 1929.During World War II, the hotel was occupied successively by the French Army, the Italian Army, the Commission d'armistice, the German Army, and by the US Air Force.
In 1981, the hotel was sold to the Concorde Hotels & Resorts Group.
In 2005, four hotels, including the Hôtel Martinez, were sold to Starwood Capital Group.
The hotel was sold in 2012 and joined the Hyatt Group on April 9, 2013. It was renamed the Grand Hyatt Cannes Hotel Martinez. The hotel closed for renovations on October 30, 2017, and reopened for business on March 5, 2018, under its original name.