DD sent me a seafront shot of what she thinks is a view of a church and a bathhouse. Note both sections of the photo. I searched for a similar vintage photo to identify the seaside church with two spires and a Roman-style boathouse close to the shore. Come to find out the church in the photo isn’t the religious kind, although the jury remains out on that point. That building, so distinctive as seen from the ocean, is the Casino de Monte-Carlo.
The long, narrow panoramic photograph, gives an aerial view. Aerial shots in 1920 were the purview of a division of the French Armed Forces, called the Girard Observers or the “Observateur Fleury Seive.” These silver gelatin photos captured famous locations in the 1920s. Today “Bits of Our Past” photography sellers in Poynton, UK offers two other shots of a similar photo at AbeBooks.
To me the two spires represented a holy place. I figured the structure resembling a Roman Boathouse signified something to do with water. In fact that’s part of the Oceanographic Museum.
Casino de Monte-Carlo houses a gambling complex, arts offices, and the Opera de Monte-Carlo and Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. The Société des Bains de Mer et du Cercle des Étrangers de Monaco, which translates to “the bathing and seaside society for strangers in Monaco,” operates the whole Casino. Why strangers? Founders believed locals might become morally compromised if they worked in or gambled in the casino, so they banned them. The revenue-producing place takes foreigners’ money, with income going to the Royal Family of Monaco, owners the founding company since the mid-19th century.
The Genius Behind Casino de Monte-Carlo
Princess Consort of Monaco, Maria Caroline Gibert de Lametz (1793-1879), became a Grimaldi after marrying Florestan I (1816-1856). When they met as actors in France, Florestan harbored no great designs on becoming a prince, especially since the Grimaldi family was poor by the standards of royalty in the day. Marie Caroline achieved her destiny as a rich princess by turning the Grimaldi poverty into the Grimaldi fortune. To do so she amended the tax laws, and planned to imitate the greatest of all casinos, the Bad Homburg, in Monaco in the mid-19th century.
Marie Caroline begged the entrepreneur François Blanc, responsible for Casino Bad Homburg’s success, to work for the Grimaldi family. She persuaded Blanc to move to Monaco, a place with few roads. Francois Blanc set up the plans for a great casino in 1863, with his major investors, the Bishop of Monaco, and Cardinal Pecci of Monaco, the future Pope Leo XIII. Marie Caroline named the enterprise after her heir, the future Prince Charles/Carlo.
Blanc lent money to the French Third Republic, allowing France to complete the great Paris Opera House. This connected him to the greatest Beaux Arts architect of the day, Charles Garnier, who designed and built the Paris Opera House, now the Palais Garnier. His Monte-Carlo façade designs of 1878-79 remains the fabulous architecture we see today. The interior has been significantly altered.
The Monte-Carlo Effect
The Casino de Monte-Carlo became the center of the world of high-style gambling for years. After all, it’s James Bond’s favorite casino, seen in Never Say Never Again, and of course, in GoldenEye. Ocean’s Twelve filmed there in 2004. Much more happened over the years. For example experiments in mathematical probability “The Monte-Carlo Effect,” where various notorious gamblers tried to beat the odds in such a palatial setting.
The first gambler who tried to cheat the odds became the subject of a popular song, “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte-Carlo” (1892) by vaudevillian Charles Coburn. It featured an off-kilter roulette wheel. Another attempt at breaking the casino’s bank became a book written by Ben Mezrich titled Bringing Down the House. Busting Vegas, the true story of a group of math geeks attempting to break the bank by counting cards—the exploits of the MIT Blackjack Team in 2003.
Such a famous place is featured in this 1920s aerial photo worth $90.