Chantebise can host a wedding, a small seminar, a family reunion or a sports group for 30 to 110 guests, with 80 seated in its reception hall, and sleeps 32 people in seven cottages. The site is a former marble factory on the edge of Saoû, a village in the Drôme, at the foot of the Forêt de Saoû.
Seminars and company events
The hall can be booked for seminars as well as for leisure and sports groups. It suits a team of a few dozen people who want to meet, eat and stay on one site for a weekend or a week. The main hall of 130 square meters has a good sound system, and a small adjoining room of 14 square meters, behind a glass workshop partition, can serve as a breakout room or a quiet office. Outdoors, the garden and an old amphitheater give room for a session in the open air. The owners can put groups in touch with local providers for hiking, climbing or canyoning.
Weddings and receptions
Weddings are the main event use. Chantebise is hired in full on only a few dates each year, so the couple and their guests have the place to themselves for a weekend or a week. The outdoor spaces split the stay into distinct moments: a plane tree alley next to a lavender field for a lunch in the shade, a garden facing the rocky peaks known as the Aiguilles, the former amphitheater for a performance, and the pool area with its pool house. No supplier is imposed. On request, the owners recommend caterers, equipment rental companies, wedding planners, decorators, a wine merchant, beer tap rental and food trucks.
Rooms and capacities
The reception hall measures 130 square meters and holds 30 to 110 people, with 80 seats. It was fully renovated in 2023, with stone walls, terracotta tile floors and careful lighting. A tinted cement bar can take dishes for a buffet, and a large wood stove heats the room in winter. Toilets, a cloakroom and a well equipped professional kitchen adjoin the hall.
Accommodation
Seven cottages sleep 2 to 7 people each, 32 beds in total, or 28 in winter. They range from La Tiquette, 26 square meters with one double bed, to Carabistouille, 100 square meters for 7 people, and Patin-couffin, 110 square meters for 6. Each has a private terrace or balcony, and cottages can be combined. Guests share a fenced pool, a private park of 2 hectares that runs down to the Vèbre river, barbecues, a laundry, a playground and Wi-Fi. For a larger party, the village center is 400 meters away and has many guesthouses and campsites.
Catering
There is no in-house catering. Groups bring the caterer of their choice, who works in the professional kitchen next to the hall.
History and setting
A flour mill on this site was turned into a marble factory in 1891, producing the stone marbles children played with in schoolyards. Around 1900 it employed 15 to 20 workers, many of them from Alsace, who had moved to Saoû after the annexation of their region. Villagers cut stones into small cubes in the evenings, and the workers rounded them between two millstones driven by the mill. One of these millstones still stands in the courtyard. The factory closed in 1935 and became a bicycle factory, then a children's holiday camp after the war. The Forêt de Saoû, a perched syncline, rises above the site.
Getting there
The address is 39 route du Roc, 26400 Saoû. By car, the site is 20 minutes from the A7 motorway (Loriol exit), 30 minutes from Montélimar station and 40 minutes from Valence TGV station. Four shuttles a day run between Valence TGV and Saoû, and a taxi on demand serves Crest station.
