Page 309 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6

or less servile employees, who cynically cultivated diplomatic Helen had a real talent: her skill with a pencil, or rather her wrote in her notebook, ‘I’m leaving the B.R.!!!’ and on 11 August
responses, all the while secretly spoiling the little girls with sweets skill with scissors. Adept at decoupage and a keen observer of 1961 she moved into ‘Beau-Rêve’.
and turning a blind eye to the bicycle tracks on the lawns. the palace fauna in the 1930s, she sketched, cut out and glued A few weeks before her death in 1998, Helen McCann had
Reading was an important part of everyday life. Frances together portraits of residents and passing guests. She even gave the foresight to recognise the historical value of her personal
preferred American novelists, while Helen avidly read royal them nicknames or sobriquets based on their habits, quirks and archive. Essentially composed of family photographs and souvenirs,
biographies, and closely followed the doings of the ruling families personalities. The result was a series of caricatures that has come film reels and the series of caricatures, they were handed over to
of Romania and Yugoslavia (fig. 5). She made friends with some alive again for the first time in this book (fig. 7). a lifelong friend, who presented them to two public conservation
of them; after leaving the hotel in 1959, she would regularly offer Was it the cut-out silhouettes created by her father or the institutes, to save them from destruction and oblivion. He thus
hospitality to exiles from the Communist revolution in Eastern cut-out of crows signed by Edouard-Marcel Sandoz in 1931 and perpetuated the memory of the woman who was his great friend
Europe at her home in Pully. For Helen did not leave the hotel found in Helen’s files that were the inspiration for her pastime? and confidante when he himself was a little boy, racing around the
until 31 October 1959, at the age of 41 and after having spent the We shall never know. corridors of the Beau-Rivage Palace in search of a bygone era.
most important years of her life there. Caricatures were not Helen’s only artistic outlet. She was
The girls were part of Lausanne society and their education also a fine watercolourist. In her first show, she exhibited eight
also included practising the arts. In June 1937, Helen had her first works alongside her teacher, the Russian exile Alexis Chiriaeff,
cello lesson with Jean Décosterd at the Ribaupierre institute. It was from 16 to 31 October 1943, in the former Cercle Beau-Séjour.
a revelation. She would study and play this valuable instrument for An undated article, that she archived, commented, ‘Helen McCann
the rest of her life. On 24 June 1939, a Saturday, she had her first [presents] a few watercolour views of our gardens and our lake, remarkable
lesson with an all-female quartet. In her address book, under the as much for her sensitive talents as for the modesty to which they testify’.
heading ‘Special Record’, Helen made a note of the date of 4 July The arrival of a new manager at the Beau-Rivage Palace
1939, which marked the arrival of Pascal and Musette, the two sounded the knell for Helen’s time within its walls. She wrote in
black poodles that would become her greatest delight and occupy her notebook, ‘Arrival this evening Tuesday 27 April 1954 of Mr and
her daily life. For her sister Frances, on the other hand, the most Mrs Schaerer, the new manager of Beau-Rivage. Departure of Mr and Mrs
important event was the day her fiancé asked her to marry him. Müller on the 30th… and the end of a wonderful era!!!’ Helen could
The young Helen was mad about dogs. The family already not cope with the change. She felt herself to be the ‘custodian’
had an old Scottish terrier, answering to the name of Laddie of the Beau-Rivage Palace. She loved its traditions and, for her,
and immortalised by the sculptor Edouard-Marcel Sandoz. The the hotel’s bland food was the ‘best’ there was. After her mother’s
sculpture in patinated bronze lorded it over the lounge of suite death in 1941, Helen lived in her parents’ room, first with her
400 (later room 450) for many years after the terrier’s death (see disoriented father, then alone. For a long time she lived there as
fig. 7, p. 16). if in a mausoleum.
One event was to turn Helen’s life upside down and mark Little by little she cut the umbilical cord that bound her to
the beginning of her emancipation from Beau-Rivage. On 25 the hotel. In February 1957, the death of Ernest Schaerer and
March 1957 at two o’clock in the afternoon, Pascal, her faithful his replacement by an American-style manager prompted her
poodle of seventeen years and ten months, by now old and blind, finally to leave. In May 1959 she bought a house in Pully through
sadly fell from the balcony of Helen’s room. The accident inspired a local estate agent. On 1 June 1959 she became the owner of
a witty comment from another of the hotel’s residents, who the Hauterive villa, on the Chamblandes road, which she had
mischievously remarked: ‘It’s raining cats and dogs.’ (fig. 6). converted by the architect Jack Cornaz. On 31 October 1959 she

The McCann Family, cartoon signed by Santry. The speech bubble coming out Ghost self-portrait of Francis McCann. Undated photograph. Francis McCann, photograph taken at the foot of the Savoy Room staircase, [Helen McCann?], A meeting by the greenhouses of the Beau-Rivage Palace, c.1955.
of the dog’s mouth reads: ‘Here we are again in li’lle old New York where a laddie at the wedding of Princess Dolores de Bourbon and Prince Auguste Czartorisky, 1937.
can get a scotch when he wants it.?!!!?’ Fig. 7 >
The caricature, showing the father taking photos, luggage, the American flag, Helen McCann, Count Piezdietzki and Ivan. Watercolour sketch cut out
and the Scottish terrier, sums up the family for whom the Beau-Rivage was home and mounted on a blue background, undated.
for several decades.
308 309