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M iramar – sea view – is the name of the small coastal town, located west of Cannes at the Côte d'Azur. From the
Croisette via Corniche d'Or, the drive takes less than half an hour. Bizarre red rock formations of the Esterel
Massif soar next to the legendary coast road, from which the winding road was painstakingly wrested around 1900,
while on the other side, the stony terrain plunges to the Mediterranean. In Miramar, the Corniche runs around the sum-
mit of Col de l´Esquillon in a long curve, whose rugged foothills rise from the sea as Pointe de l´Esquillon beneath the
road. It is probably the most spectacular section of the road because the terrain steeply slopes down towards the sea.
Viewed from inside a car it seems as if the slightest driving mistake could cause the car to break through the low lateral
wall and crash into the sea. Exactly here – on a narrow strip of rocky land below the road – one of the most remarkable
houses at the Côte d'Azur is hiding. It was built by American architect Barry Dierks in 1926. It was his first house and
the start of a brilliant career as architect of the pretty folk. Today, we can ascribe more than 100, partly highly impres-
sive villas and country houses located along the French Riviera to the American.

The talented Mr. Dierks: Le Trident is Barry Dierks´ ingenious early and main work

There is primarily one reason why Dierks chose this rocky and hardly accessible terrain at Pointe de l´Esquillon of all
sites, which locals regarded as unsuited for any development, for his house – and the reason was Eric Sawyer. He was
ten years older than Dierks and came from England. Both had come to know and love each other in the early 1920s in Die Lage des Hauses ist spektakulär. • The location is spectacular.
Paris. Even though the French society dealt with homosexuality extremely liberally in the period between the two
World Wars, Dierks and Sawyer were always aware of their endangered role as outsiders and the strict necessity to
protect themselves against hostilities and denunciation. Consequently, the secluded site beneath the Corniche d´Or,
which is only visible from the sea, was ideal. Here, Dierks and Sawyer were able to unobtrusively live the life they
wished for, without being hampered – open, carefree and with numerous friends and like-minded people. The guest-
book of their house, which has been preserved to this day, provides a small insight into the blithe life at Le Trident.
Dierks and Sawyer loved to take photographs of their visitors and add these photographs to the entries in the guest-
book. Besides family members – especially Sawyer‘s mother – and a number of Dierks´ clients, many of the photos
show individual men or small groups of men, frequently only dressed in swimming trunks, posing on the terrace or on
the rocks underneath the house. The bleak surrounding landscape, the sea as backdrop and the deliberately chosen
poses remotely remind of antique-like, homoerotic nudes, which gained German photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden
fame at the end of the 19th century. Simultaneously, the photographs in the guestbook are a clear indication that the
Grundriss Erdgeschoss • Ground floor plan
couple cultivated close friendly contacts with other homosexuals at the Côte d'Azur and liked to open their remote
house on the coast for this circle of friends. However, in the 1920s and 1930s, Dierks and Sawyer not only felt at home
in their private refuge at Pointe de l´Esquillon but also in exquisite bars, restaurants and hotels on the Croisette in
Cannes. It was mainly Americans and Brits, who populated the Côte d'Azur in those days. Many of these men had
fought in France during the First World War only a few years ago, had fallen in love with this country and now returned
with their families and friends – some came for a few weeks per year, others – like Dierks and Sawyer – stayed forever.
They revitalised the French Riviera after the war. They brought along jazz, fast sports cars and short summer dresses –
in short: they introduced a new, modern sense of life to the Mediterranean. Where the European aristocracy once spent
the summer months in private, the jeunesse dorée of the American 1920s economic boom enjoyed life – young artists
and intellectuals, sophisticated adventurers and jetsetters. The Côte d'Azur was grateful for this new clientele – espe-
cially since the solvent Russian upper class, which had mainly characterised the appearance of the Riviera before the
First World War, failed to appear since the October Revolution in 1918. Dierks as an American and Sawyer as a Brit and
of a good family, quickly proved to be charming companions in this social environment and welcome guests at parties
and private soirées. Obviously, Dierks also used these opportunities for the acquisition of new clients. He thereby ben-
efitted from the fact that he was not committed to a fixed architectural conviction but was always able to adapt to the
wishes and ideas of his clients. The semi-modern style of Le Trident, which Dierks skilfully enriched with historic bor-
rowings and set pieces from Provencal-Mediterranean architecture, became his trademark. The architect mastered an
amazingly broad repertoire, depending to what extent his clients were willing to open up towards modernism – or
weren’t at all. This indecision is one reason why Dierks´ buildings never attracted the attention as, for example, Robert
Mallet-Stevens´ Villa Noailles in Hyères or Eileen Gray‘s Maison en Bord de Mer in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, which were
constructed at the same time as Le Trident at the Côte d'Azur, still enjoy today.

The sun as only witness: Le Trident allowed its residents an untroubled life

Their carefree life on the Riviera ended abruptly with the outbreak of the Second World War. While Sawyer was active
in the Résistance, Dierks had to leave the country. Only in 1946, the two men could return to Le Trident. Dierks quickly
returned to his work and opened a new office on Rue d´Antibes in Cannes together with two colleagues, Marc-Pierre
Renaut and Claude Magne. A serious vascular disease increasingly discomforted the architect. In 1956, one of his legs
had to be amputated and so Le Trident, which he had so spectacularly positioned on the rocks of Pointe de l´Esquillon
to keep away curious views and unwelcome visitors, turned into a prison for him. Four years later, on 20 February
1960, Dierks died at the age of 60. Sawyer, on the contrary, survived his younger partner by a quarter of a century.
When he died in 1985, Le Trident, their shared home, passed into the ownership of a nephew. Today, a rich Russian
businessman owns the house, which is not without a certain irony, because Dierks and Sawyer arrived at the Côte
d'Azur exactly at the time when the Russians disappeared. In recent years, the new owner had the villa elaborately
restored and converted by Stuttgart-based architects. Inside the building, only little is left of the charm of its time of ori-
gin, while on the outside, Le Trident still shines in the glistening sun of the Mediterranean. Grundriss Obergeschoss • Upper floor plan

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