1950-1955 The first villages

Alcudia, the first village

The first village was built in Alcudia, a small fishing village on the Balearic island of Palma de Mallorca.
Gérard Blitz had purchased surplus American equipment. (Maurice Blitz, father of Gérard and Didy, had provided him with the necessary funds by selling the house in Antwerp.) The American army, stationed in Germany, was packing its bags and selling the surplus. The overly "military" tents in Alcudia were given the names of metro stations, flowers, or Parisian neighborhoods to replace the numbers that still served as a reminder that the Second World War had just ended a few years earlier.

An advertisement in L'Équipe and its Antwerp sports equivalent, along with a few posters, promoted this new vacation concept.
Membership registrations—the term GM came later—were carried out at 9 rue Buffaut in the 9th arrondissement of Paris by Gérard and Claudine Blitz. In Belgium, the office was located in Antwerp at 4 rue Anselme. The price for a 15-day all-inclusive vacation in the Balearic Islands was 16,800 old francs.
In the fall of 1950, Gérard was looking for a tent maker to replace the tents in Alcudia, which had been sold as American surplus. It was time to prepare for the following season. The list of tent makers he obtained from the Chamber of Commerce included the name "Trigano père et fils" with a telephone number. The story goes that Gilbert Trigano picked up the phone at the other end because he was near the phone when Gerard Blitz called. The company "Trigano père et fils" also became the supplier for Paul Morihien's Magic Village club that same year.

The early 1950s marked the development of the Club Méditerranée association. New villages gradually emerged across the Mediterranean basin. After Alcudia, which only existed during the summer of 1950, it was Golfo di Baratti in Italy (Tuscany) that the GMs discovered from 1951. Corfu, which would later be called Ipsos Corfu in 1952, Marina di Campo (Elba Island) and Becici (Montenegro/Yugoslavia) in 1953, were the association's first villages.
1952 was also an extraordinary experience for some GMs at the Helsinki village. This temporary village was set up for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Finland. The Club Méditerranée association also opened the Californian Garden in 1953 in the heart of Rome, just a hundred meters from the Vatican.

During the first 4 years, the villages (except the Californian Garden in Rome) were tent villages, like Alcudia. The Trigano father and son company, absent for Alcudia, became, from the autumn of 1950, the supplier of tent canvas to the Club Méditerranée. Thus Baratti, Corfu, Montenegro, Elba and Capri will have spacious tents measuring 3 meters by 3 and 2.70 meters high. The amenities are grouped in places called thermal baths or sanitary blocks, equipped with individual sinks and showers (some open, others closed). The first villages underwent many adaptations, various tinkering, particularly in terms of plumbing and electricity, and it was sometimes the D system that prevailed. Some GMs even got involved by participating in the work.

Everyone knows each other upon arrival in the village and the informal "tu" is already used. It should be noted that the transfer from Paris to the villages sometimes lasts several days (2.5 days for Corfu in 1953 with train to Venice then boat, 1 month by boat to Tahiti in 1955). This makes it easy to get to know each other even before arriving in the village. This is where the restaurant's tables of 8 originate. 8 because that was the number of berths in a train compartment. Water skiing and scuba diving are among the star sports offered in these early villages. Volleyball and pétanque are also played.

1954 was a doubly important year for Club Méditerranée. On the one hand, it crossed the Mediterranean and opened the first village in Tunisia on the island of Djerba along Seguia beach. On the other hand, it also saw the arrival of the first Polynesian huts intended to replace the tents that were beginning to show signs of wear. The invention of the Polynesian huts was due to Claudine Blitz, Gérard Blitz's wife.
The huts were tested in Corfu before being gradually implemented in other existing villages.

During these early years, it was in direct competition with the Magic Village club, which also opened tent villages in Europe at Plansee in the Austrian Tyrol and at Cefalu in Sicily opposite the famous rock. There was a queue outside Rue de la Bourse in front of Club Méditerranée, and the same was true of Rue de la Boétie in front of the Magic Villages. In 1950, Club Méditerranée welcomed 2,300 members (GM appeared in 1951, as did TGM (the equivalent of Millésia at the time!!). 3 years later, the figure rose to 7,000 GM.

The story could have been as beautiful as a fairy tale, if it hadn't been for the financial issue. All this is indeed very beautiful, but it is expensive, very expensive and the finances of each of the two clubs become disastrous. The debts swell even more as the method of controlling the regulations and contributions of each member is more than artisanal and causes many oversights. The two clubs owe money to the Trigano Company for the rental of tents (Trigano being the supplier of the two associations), but also to the SNCF… . Gilbert TRIGANO is one of the main actors for the merger of the two clubs which will take place in 1955.
In 1957, the Club Méditerranée association will adopt the statutes of a Société Anonyme à capital variable and buys the Club Polynésie which has just closed down. The number of GM then rises to 22,000.

During these early years of existence, some of the co-creators of the Magical Villages joined the Club Méditerranée association. Dimitry PHILIPPOFF in 1951, the following year Judith BLITZ (Didy). Both were promoted to village leaders. He left his mark on the history of Club Méditerranée.
When the two clubs merged, Paul MORIHIEN joined the team and was more specifically responsible for the publication of the Trident.