Les Airelles

Snow comes down to the door. Les Airelles stands in the Jardin Alpin, the wooded quarter above the centre of Courchevel 1850, and its guests click into their skis on the terrace and glide off down the piste that runs past the hotel. In the evening they ski back to the same spot. That single arrangement, rare even in Courchevel, explains much of the house's reputation.

History

Raymonde Fenestraz, a Savoyard hotelier who had already run chalets in the resort, built Les Airelles and opened it for the 1992 season, the winter of the Albertville Olympics. She wanted a hotel that looked as if it had always been there, and chose the style of a nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian hunting castle rather than the modern chalet architecture of the time. The hotel grew by stages, adding a spa, a children's house and the suites of the adjoining building. In 2010 it was among the first group of French hotels awarded the Palace distinction. Since 2019 it has belonged to Airelles Collection, the group founded by Stéphane Courbit, which also owns Airelles Val d'Isère, Château de Versailles Le Grand Contrôle and Airelles Gordes.

Architecture and design

The façade is painted plaster with carved wooden balconies, turrets and a steep roof under the snow, the look of a Tyrolean Schloss transplanted to Savoy. Inside, the decoration follows through: wood panelling, painted ceilings, tapestries, fur throws, antlers and open fires, with a great deal of red and gold. It is unapologetically theatrical and has been kept that way through successive refurbishments rather than modernised.

Rooms and suites

The house has around fifty rooms and suites, including a private apartment with its own entrance and staff for families who take over a whole floor. Rooms are panelled and carpeted, with balconies on the piste side. Beds are made up with heavy linen and the bathrooms are in marble. Ski valets handle boots and equipment in a heated ski room at piste level, so guests never carry their skis.

Dining

Pierre Gagnaire, the three-star Paris chef, has run the gastronomic restaurant at Les Airelles since the 2000s; it opens for dinner in season and is one of the few fine-dining tables in the Alps attached to a hotel. La Table des Airelles serves the main dining room with a long buffet breakfast and a classic French and Savoyard menu, while the Coin Savoyard does fondue and raclette in a wood-lined room. Afternoon tea in the lounge, with pastries from the hotel's own kitchen, is a fixture for guests coming off the slopes.

Wellness

The spa occupies the lower floors with an indoor pool, hammam, sauna, treatment rooms and a fitness suite. Après-ski is the busiest time, when the pool and the snow garden outside are at their most used. A children's club with its own rooms, cinema and activity programme takes guests from three years up, one of the reasons the hotel is favoured by families.

Weddings and events

Les Airelles is a seasonal winter hotel and is taken for private events in that frame: birthday weeks, corporate incentives and the occasional wedding, usually on a full-buyout basis in December or late March. There is a private dining room for dinners of a few dozen and the lounges can be arranged for receptions. Large conferences are not held here.

Location

The Jardin Alpin is a five-minute walk from the Croisette and the shops of Courchevel 1850, and the hotel runs cars to the resort centre in the evening. The nearest railway station is Moûtiers-Salins-Brides-les-Bains, about forty-five minutes by road; Chambéry and Geneva airports are around two and three hours away. The Courchevel altiport, reached by small aircraft and helicopter, is a few minutes from the hotel. Les Airelles opens in December and closes in April, and as a luxury hotel in Courchevel it is one of the few that never operates in summer.