It's hard to make your mark on one of the world's most famous beach towns, but with the helping of the LVMH luxury conglomerate, Cheval Blanc St Tropez might just have done it, says Country Life's James Fisher. For what is quite a small place, St Tropez has quite the reputation. This commune in the south of France began life as a simple fishing village, and then Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli and Brigitte Bardot came to visit.
And then came the yachts and the money. You can’t blame them really — the yachts and the money. Wandering the streets of this village, it’s hard not to be enchanted.
Bright coloured shutters, elegant bricks and cobbles; contrast that with the azure waves of the Mediterranean and it’s everything the south of France is supposed to be. You’ve been to villages like this, but the difference is the villages you went to didn’t have three Louis Vuitton shops in them. Considering that one of the south of France’s main jobs is to ‘be on or near the beach’ it’s quite surprising that of the hotels in St Tropez, only one has direct access.
It is, of course, the Cheval Blanc — if Bernard Arnault is going to be spending money on a hotel, it’s going to be on the beach. Formerly known as La Résidence de la Pinède, this cream coloured residence placed between the pines does its absolute best to redefine what luxury means. After all, in St Tropez, where visitors are expecting and are used to perfection, then you simply have to be better than.