It’s the stuff reality TV producers dream about. A camera-friendly,
globe-trotting couple, who love to camp in the Australian outback and have
next to no experience in hospitality, open a luxury chalet-hotel lodge in
the French Alps.
Two weeks after opening (just before Christmas) the local laundry burnt down
along with all the lodge’s bedding and linen. Then the pastry chef got
embroiled in a street brawl with some English tourists in nearby Chamonix
and was out of action for two months. Not a recipe for success, you’d think.
But Virginie and Sandro Seinturier have staged a winning and unusual coup
combining 14 boutique chalets with all the facilities of a four-star hotel
on site – the accreditation in France is more or less redundant as the
criteria for four stars was laid down in the mid Eighties and the facilities
here are as good as a lot of five-star accommodation in Britain.
In the three-storied reception lodge, there’s an excellent spa with thermal
suites and a small pool; a neat gym; a spacious but underused lounge that
doubles as a yoga space; a decent 160-seater restaurant serving modern
European grub; reception has extras such as a DVD library and a concierge is
on hand to answer guests’ questions or tinker with minor domestic hiccups in
the chalet if need be.
In fact, the Seinturiers live in chalet no. 2 so they know the quirks of their
properties intimately. The three-storey, four-bedroom chalets each have a
private sauna, designer kitchen, widescreen fireplace, wireless internet
access and large sliding doors open on to terraces in the living space and
master bedroom with dramatic views of the Mont Blanc valley.
“The venture offers the best of both world’s really. Take food for example: if
guests don’t want to cook for themselves a chef is on hand to prepare a
gourmet meal in the chalet or they can come to the restaurant. Few places in
Europe offer this dual service,” says Virginie.
The lodge is a family enterprise. Virginie’s dad is a property developer with
a passion for mountain architecture. He designs and builds the chalets and
even constructed the site's small chapel-art gallery from a sketch he made
on his travels.
Her mother is the interior decorator. She has used wood, stone and light as
her three core elements. The reception area gives a typical flavour of the
lodge’s décor: chunky burnt pine beams, textured fabrics such as faux
cow-hide covers on furniture, a double-sided open fireplace beneath a
stacked slate chimney and a dominant triangular window cleverly frames a
panorama of snowy peaks above the nearby village of Les Houches, where the
skiing is good for all levels.
The lodge has a free taxi service which zig-zags half a mile down to the
resort. From here a complimentary public bus service runs regularly to
Chamonix (15 minutes) with its multiple piste options.
Staff have been recruited locally and what they are still learning in de-luxe
service polish they more than make up for in amiable helpfulness. Virginie
acknowledges that there have been teething problems – she’s spot on, for
example, that the lights over the dinner table in the chalet might be a bit
bright for some people’s taste – and is keen to make detail changes.
While Virginie seeks to alter the well-embedded perception among the French
that Chamonix is “unsophisticated and masculine” with the introduction of
pillow menus, summer yoga courses and eco-lodge measures such as possible
geothermal heating in the new batch of smaller chalets being built beneath
the lodge, she stops short at solar panels: “They would detract
aesthetically from the snow-clad wooden rooftops.”
One rather pretentious French writer has guffed about the place in terms of
“emotional highs” and as ideal for “new greens and metrosexuals”. Come
again?
This is simply an independent, family-run operation that channels a tasteful
mix of mum and dad’s talents towards its aspirations of five-star comfort.
And when their next mountain hideway opens down the valley in Megeve next
year they’ll be well prepared.
Les Granges d’en Haut, Chamonix Les Houches, France (+33 (0)4 50 54 65 36; www.grangesdenhaut.com).
From €1,630 (£1,150) per night; minimum stay three nights.
Read
a full spa review of Les Granges in the Good Spa Guide
