Cheval Blanc Courchevel

A chalet at the top of the Jardin Alpin, with the Bellecôte piste running past its ski room, was where Bernard Arnault's group chose to become a hotelier. Cheval Blanc Courchevel, in Courchevel 1850, opened in December 2006 as the first house of a collection named after the Saint-Émilion estate LVMH had bought eight years earlier.

History

LVMH had owned Château Cheval Blanc since 1998 and wanted a hotel brand to carry the name. Courchevel 1850, the highest and most expensive of the resort's villages and a winter address for the group's clientele, was the obvious first site. The hotel opened for the 2006-2007 season with Yannick Alléno, then chef at Le Meurice in Paris, in charge of the kitchen. In May 2011 the French state created the Palace distinction and Cheval Blanc Courchevel was among the first eight hotels to receive it, the only one in the Alps alongside Les Airelles. Le 1947, the gastronomic restaurant, won its third Michelin star in 2017, which made it the first three-star restaurant in a ski resort in France. Cheval Blanc opened in Randheli in 2013, St-Barth in 2013 and Paris in 2021, but Courchevel remains the house where the collection's codes were set.

Architecture and design

The building is a large chalet in the Courchevel manner, stone at the base and timber above, with balconies on every floor facing the slopes. Sybille de Margerie designed the interiors: white and cream fabrics, blond wood, fur throws, hand-painted panels and contemporary art, lighter than the dark alpine style common in the resort at the time. The ski room opens directly onto the piste, so guests leave the hotel on skis and return the same way.

Rooms and suites

There are 36 rooms and suites, a small number for a hotel of this reputation, which keeps the public rooms quiet. Most look onto the Jardin Alpin and the pistes. The largest suites and the apartment on the upper floors have fireplaces, private hammams and terraces, and the hotel also lets a separate chalet for families and groups who want their own staff.

Dining

Le 1947 à Cheval Blanc is Yannick Alléno's restaurant, named after the Cheval Blanc 1947, the vintage collectors consider the estate's greatest. It seats a handful of tables for dinner and has held three Michelin stars since 2017; Alléno's work on sauces and extraction, his signature in Paris, is on the menu here. Le Triptyque is the hotel's second restaurant, open for breakfast, lunch and more relaxed dinners, with the dishes of the mountains alongside Italian and French classics. Le Bar White serves drinks and cigars under a ceiling of white feathers.

Wellness

The Spa Cheval Blanc works with Guerlain and has an indoor pool with views of the slopes, a hammam, a sauna and treatment rooms. A ski butler handles equipment and lift passes. Children have their own club, the Carrousel, which is unusual in a hotel of this type and a reason families return each winter.

Weddings and events

The hotel operates in winter only and most private events are family celebrations and corporate retreats booked around the ski season, often as a buyout of the whole house or the chalet. Le 1947 and Le Triptyque take private dinners. There is no ballroom; the hotel's size limits events to small groups.

Location

Cheval Blanc stands on the Jardin Alpin in Courchevel 1850, at the heart of Les Trois Vallées, the largest linked ski area in the world. Courchevel's altiport is minutes away for private aircraft and helicopters; Chambéry airport is about 1 hour 45 minutes by road, Geneva about 2 hours 30 minutes, and the railway station at Moûtiers, with TGV services from Paris in winter, about 40 minutes. For the clientele that arrives each December, it is the luxury hotel in Courchevel that defines the Palace category in the mountains.