Hôtel Le Royal Deauville

A Section Addition to Chapter 2, Two Roads Diverged An Art Memoir: Depth, Light, and Love

That summer of 1975, Chris Lewis, my USC teammate, and I (him 19, me 18) played the minor pro tennis tour in Europe. We played in France, Denmark, Holland, and Germany. We had Eurorail Passes, sometimes sitting in first class and, if the train was full, sometimes sitting on the floor by the toilets. When I had free time, I would visit archaeological sites and museums.

When we were in Paris, we heard we could get free Lacoste tennis clothes through the French Tennis Federation. We met its president. He arranged with the Lacoste showroom to give us bundles of tennis clothes. Then he asked us if we would play in an exhibition tournament showcasing the French Davis Cup players in Deauville, France, with our expenses covered. Sure! Unsaid, he thought we would be fodder for French players.

They “housed” us at the Hôtel Le Royal, as rich as it gets. For instance, after one of our matches a young and very beautiful Mrs. Rothschild invited Chris and me to join her at a polo match. Picking us up, she apologized that the Rolls was unavailable and bragged that her husband had paid the accommodations the whole team at that Royal. And that on her birthday, her husband asked her what she wanted, and she wished to go to Disney World. I asked, "Did you go the same day?" She flatly replied, "No, we went some weeks later." I didn’t mean to dampen her celebration of wealth, but I couldn’t figure out why she was trying to impress two teenage Americans.

8 The dining room at the Hôtel Le Royal Deauville, very much like I remember in 1975.

All our meals took place in the extraordinary dining room. I remember during breakfast watching a chef's assistant peeling the membranes off the grapefruit sections.

We played for five days, lasting until the final day. We lost early in singles, but we made it to the finals of the doubles, beating their No. 2 team.

9 Myself and Chris Lewis (1975) in Deauville, France.

One night, while at the Royal, Chris and I talked about our individual aims in life. He loved everything about the wealthy lifestyle the hotel represented and told me that this was the lifestyle he wanted. After college, Chris would play a few years on the pro tennis tour, getting to the semi-finals of Wimbledon mixed doubles with Leslie Allen. After tennis, he went on to be a founding partner in the private equity firm Riordan, Lewis, and Haden. Wikipedia says: “… the fourth and most recent fund (raised in 2017) comprised $510 million of capital commitments.”

On the other hand, I didn’t feel interested in wealth. I told him that I would have to kiss it goodbye if I were to become the artist I wanted to be, and I would love nothing more than to be that artist. I didn't realize then how prophetic our musings would become.