Out on a Limb: Tree Houses in Provence

Above: Le Clos Saint Saourde

Above: Bastide du Bois Breant

Above: Orion

Above: Le Pavillon Vert

Above: Maison Valvert     

Above: Chateau Valmer

Above: Figues & Fugues

Over the years I've seen a lot of fabulous places to stay in Provence: hotels of all types, chateaux, country inns, gites, guesthouses, hotel barges, riverboats, cottages, platform tents,  campgrounds, gypsy caravans and even yurts. Yep--thought I had seen it all. And then I started coming across tree houses, which seem to have become a trend. How fun! If you’re itching to get in touch with your inner Tarzan, you’ll want to check these out…

Le Clos Saint Saourde is a gorgeous ‘designer B&B’ in the heart of Beaumes de Venise wine country, 30 km from Avignon. There the tree house is actually perched on stilts. The large bay window and deck offer fabulous views of  poplar, oak, the Dentelles de Montmirail mountain range and vineyards as far as the eye can see. There’s a Jacuzzi on the terrace (a first in France) and all the best modern amenities (flat screen TV, mini bar, WiFi, heat and A/C) inside. Take your breakfast at the pool or owner Jérôme Thuillier (a former interior designer in Paris) will bring you a tray to enjoy in the privacy of…your tree. Le Clos Saint Saourde, contact@leclossaintsaourde.com,  04-90-37-35-20  or 06-99-41-44-19.

At Le Pavillon Vert, five km from Avignon in Vedene, you can sleep five meters off the ground in “La Cabane Perchée,” which the owners call "25 square meter s of love nest.” It’s a rustic but lovely light-spilled space, with a double bed, bathroom, kitchen and table for dining on the deck. Le Pavillon Vert,  merananya@hotmail.com,  06-11-49-49-19.

In the Luberon, La Bastide du Bois Breant in Maubec is a lovely three-star hotel  in a beautiful  five-acre setting. The main building dates to 1825. For nearly a century, the property was a truffle farm; hence its thick forest of white and green oak. Deep within that forest are two hidden tree houses, where nothing but the soft swoosh of leaves will disturb you. When you’re ready for civilization again, you’ll find a shimmering pool,  breakfast on a sun-splashed terrace and other small-hotel services. Hôtel La Bastide du Bois Bréant,  contact@hotel-bastide-bois-breant.com, 04-90-05-06-78.

At Mas du Figuier in Bevons, 5 km west of Sisteron, this tiny (6 meter square) pine hideout was built by the previous owner to fulfill a childhood dream. But new owner Marion Stutz says she—and her clients--are enchanted by it. It sits 10 meters off the ground in a 100-year-old oak, overlooking a lavender field and the Lure Mountain beyond.  Probably the most rustic of the bunch,  it’s insulated with sheep wool and lit with solar power.  The treehouse has no running water or bathroom so you’ll have to go in the woods. Just kidding—you have your own private facilities in the main building, 50 meters away. Also on the property are three gites (separate cottages) and five guestrooms, all reasonably priced.  Mas du Figuier, masdufiguier@gmail.com,  06-82-60-14-39. 


Snuggled in the woods near St. Paul de Vence with views of that famous hilltop village, Orion has five—count ‘em--five tree houses. All have bathrooms and WiFi and breakfast is included. Plus, there’s access to a kitchen if you want it, a sauna, massage, yoga…and a pool that’s kept healthy with gravel and plants instead of than chlorine. Orion B&B, welcome@orionbb.com.

At Maison Valvert in Bonnieux, Cathy Herssens offers guestrooms, suites and a rustic-and-romantic tree house called La Cabane. The treehouse was built by Alain Laurens (of La CabanePerchee), whose philosophy dicates that not a single branch may be cut off, not a single nail driven into the tree. With views of the Petit Luberon Mountains and “the interior design of a five-star hotel,” this elegant treehouse sleeps two and rents for 275€ per night in high season. The price includes daily cleaning, breakfast, WiFi and use of the heated swimming pool. The 15-hectare property is planted with truffle oak trees, lavender, cherry and olive trees, and sits just 800 meters from the historic hilltop village of Bonnieux. Picnic baskets and table d’hôte style meals available upon on request. Maison Valvert,  info@maisonvalvert.com,  04-90-75-61-71.

Chateau de Creissauds is a 16th-century castle on a sprawling estate in Aubagne, nine miles east of Marseille. There the tree house sleeps four and has a small kitchen, TV, air-conditioning and of course, a terrace. The resort itself has tennis and squash courts….and a golf course over the hill. Another treehouse called Dans les Arbres houses the hotel bar. Château de Creissauds,  info@creissauds.com, 04-91-24-84-45.

Chateau de Valmer, near St. Tropez, is a four-star hotel with 42 rooms and  two intoxicating treehouses, the newest of which was created especially for families. There’s a winery on the property and beach access. The hotel itself is nestled in the heart of a five-hectare park, with a 100-year-old palm grove, a vineyard and a spa. Chateau de Valmer,  info@chateauvalmer.com,  04-94-55 15-15.

Don’t see what you’re looking for above ? They also have tree houses at:

* Figues and Fugues, between Lourmarin and Aix. 
* Reve en Luberon in Apt. 
* Les Ecuries in Brittany. 
* Bois de Vins in the Dordogne.
* La Cour de Remi in Pas de Calais. 
* Domaine du Chalet in Chigny les Roses, between Reims and   Epernay. 
* Mamouna et Cabanotte, 30 km west of Lyon. 
* A Pignata in Corsica. 

**Note: More than 50 treehouses from around the world are featured in the book Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air by Philip Jodidio. Tree Houses is a tour of the beautifully designed tree houses featuring a variety of architectural styles from romantic to modern, published by Taschen and available from Amazon...

Welcome To Our Newest Advertiser

Ben Collison and his wife, Alice, moved to France in 2003. Originally from Preston in Northwest England, they now live in Cotignac, in the Var region of Provence. They have two children: William (age 3) and Eva (11 months). Ben launched his design business in 2003 and has grown it into one of the leading English-speaking web and graphic design agencies in the South of France. Pure Design International also offers web optimization, logo design and corporate identity, marketing, advertising and print (large format, car wrapping, business cards, posters, luxury stationery, etc.) “If it’s printable, we can do it,” he says.

Ben charges €30 per hour or, for web design and development, a flat fee.  For large projects, he prefers to meet in person, therefore his clients tend to come mostly from the area between Monaco and Marseille. But he’s happy to work via phone and email too. Recent clients include Sunseeker France , Luxury & Family Property, Home-Hunts, Domaine de la Pertuisane, Fine Wine Works  and Michael Zander Architects.  And you can see more of his work on the Pure Design site….click here.

Ben’s a big believer, of course, in the power of a professional presentation…particular in these competitive times. “It’s so important to have a brand, business card or website you’re proud of,” he says. “It’s worth investing a few extra euros to have something that displays creativity and attention to detail…something that looks and feels good or provides a great user experience. The impression you leave with people really counts.”

Pure Design International

Tel: 09 70 44 62 97

Mob: 06 18 74 03 32

PureDesignInternational.com

info@puredesigninternational.com

St. Tropez, Back in the Day

I thought I had finally had my fill of “expat in Provence” memoirs but last night I snuggled in with A Feast at the Beach and am so glad I did. It takes less than two hours to read…maybe three if you savor all the recipes…and it’s a delight. 

A Feast at the Beach (3L Publishing, Sacramento, CA) is William Widmaier’s loving narrative about the glorious vacations (summer, mostly, but also Christmas) he spent at his grandparents’ home in St. Tropez. Today William, 48, lives in the San Francisco Bay area and works in marketing. But the book is set in the 1960s, when he and his brother, Stephan, stayed with “Mémé and Pépé” in their 17^th-century stone house about two kilometers from town.

Cobbled together in stages over time, the house had a large yard and vineyards out back; views of the village and the gulf in front. The house was attached to a small church, the church that appears in Henri Matisse’s 1904 painting La Chapelle St. Joseph. William remembers it smelling deliciously of furniture wax, lavender, Savon de Marseilles and, very subtly, frankincense. When the windows were open, the salty Mediterranean breeze wafted through, tinged with the smell of machine oil from Pépé’s garage. The house, William says, “dripped with history and secret lore.”

The book is filled with powerful flavors, scents, images and traditions…things you’ll recognize immediately if you’ve spent time in Provence or on the Cote d’Azur. I loved visualizing the locations William describes: the Vieux Port and the new; dense wooded pathways down to deserted beaches; late-night petanque games on the Places des Lices.

The book begins, poignantly, with a disappointment: William arrives at his grandparents’ home for the very first time, aged four, believing, for whatever reason, that his Christmas gift will be a “big magical gift…something vaguely to do with trains or cars.” He’s presented with a red scarf instead. The scarf turns out to be just one of his gifts but of course it’s the one he remembers. Ironically, the scarf becomes a treasured keepsake that he cherishes for many years, long after it’s too tattered to wear. 

A Feast at the Beach goes on to provide, through anecdotes and memories, a wonderful glimpse of life in St. Tropez before it became St. Tropez.

Of five-gallon glass wine jugs wrapped in woven straw.

Of being woken at 2 a.m. to see snow falling on the village.

Of Pépé biking 1,000 kilometers more than once, to deliver food money to his family and the families of his co-workers, all of them hiding safely from the Germans in central France.

Of Pépé eating every meal not with cutlery but with only an Opinel pocketknife.

Of baguettes packed for a day at the beach, filled with chocolate or brie or Caprice des Dieux cheese.

Of being invited by a tight group of fishermen and their wives to share a marvelous bouillabaisse feast on the beach with seafood just pulled from the nets.

Of the four-times-a-day sirens at the French naval research facility where Pépé worked as an engineer. (Locals called it simply l’usine or the factory). The sirens told workers when to start, break for lunch, get back to work and go home. Locals set their clocks by the blasts.

Of Mémé burying Pépé in his bicycling outfit.

And because food is such a huge part of French country life, every chapter of A Feast at the Beach ends with a recipe or two: all of them simple, very Provençal and delivered in a sweet, chatty style. The instructions for Lemon and Olive Chicken with French Green Beans, Uncle Jacques' Favorite Grilled Shrimp, “The Magic of Eggs and Olive Oil” and Mémé’s Sleeping Potion are almost as enjoyable as the chapters they conclude.

You know a book has grabbed you when it leaves you wanting to know more. I wondered, for example, how William came to have these charming French grandparents in the first place. He doesn’t tell us whose side they’re on, or how his parents met, or what happened to the house. So I rang him up to find out.

Mémé and Pépé are the parents of William’s mother, he told me.  She was studying in England; his father was stationed there with the U.S. Air Force. They married in the U.K. and returned to the U.S. together.

And the house? Turns out that Mémé is 94 and still living in it. She hasn’t read the book—she’s almost blind and can’t read English—but cousins have told William she’s thrilled with it nonetheless. The book is currently being translated into French.

Now when William returns to St. Tropez he’s accompanied by his wife Tiaré. If they had children, he says, he’d definitely send them off to their cousins in France. “Despite all the new developments, condos and plowed-under vineyards,” he reports, “St. Tropez is still a very beautiful place.”

To order A Feast at the Beach, click here. 

New St. Tropez Hotel Scores with Michelin Three-Star Chef

Love Pierre Gagnaire's food?  You're in luck: The Paris-based Michelin-three star chef is in charge of the kitchen at the 37-room Hotel Sezz Saint-Tropez, which opened in mid July. In the 60-seat restaurant called Colette, Gagnaire says he has “gone back to his roots with simple Mediterranean dishes such as freshly caught fish, grilled steaks, and barbecues” but there’s no shortage of lobster and truffles on the menu either. To handle the day-to-day cooking, Gagnaire chose Jérôme Roy, who worked with him at the Pierre Gagnaire restaurant in Seoul, Korea. So don't worry--the food will be superb whether the Loire-born chef is actually in the house or not; Gagnaire is currently involved in eleven restaurants worldwide.

Located in a wooded area a few minutes from the famous port (with shuttle service to town), the eco-friendly Hotel Sezz is a complex of contemporary buildings around a central pool area—“like a small Provencale village,” says owner Shahé Kalaidjian, who also has the Sezz in Paris. Kalaidjian says he asked architect Jean Jacques Ory and designer Christophe Pillet to create “a place full of grace and tranquility…a hideaway full of light, air and wind.”    

Huge glass walls and oversized windows flood the public buildings with light, while guestrooms are done up in soft white, light grey, dark brown, light blue and saffron. (A press release calls this “the 1950s colour code.”) Hotel Sezz offers three room categories: bungalows (30m²), cocoons (40m²) and villas (90m², with private pools). 

The closest beach is Plage de Canebiers, a 200-meter walk. For those who want to go to Plage de Pampelonne, the hotel offers shuttles twice a day and fully equipped picnic baskets on request. In addition to the restaurant Colette, the hotel Sezz also has a bar by Dom Perignon and a spa. The hotel’s general manager is Ani Kojayan Marcault, who’s been at the Hotel Pavillon (Paris) for the last 12 years. 

To reach Hotel Sezz Saint-Tropez, the nearest airports are Toulon Hyères (55 km), Nice (98 km) and La Mole (26 km) away. Saint Raphaël Valescure is the nearest train station, 40 km from the hotel.

The hotel is a member of Design Hotels, representing 190-plus independent properties in more than 40 countries. Rooms begin at 450€. 

Hotel Sezz Saint-Tropez

Route des Salins
83990 Saint-Tropez

+33 (0)4 94 55 31 55

For the Hotel Sezz website, click here.

For the Design Hotels site, click here.

Provence All Over the Web...

I've seen lots of great Provence and France articles online during the last month or so. And because I live to please you, dear reader, I've collected some of the best.  Here you go...enjoy!


In the New York Times, Eric Asimov rated 20 rosé wines from Provence. Read all about it here.

The Times also featured a great piece about the Luburon.


Have any of you tasted Andrea Calek's wines? I haven't but would love to.


Is Cassis the new St. Tropez? See what the Telegraph says here.

Peter Mayle tells what he loves about Provence, in the Telegraph, here.


Jancis Robinson writes about wines from the Languedoc-Roussillon, which is technically of course not Provence but close enough for me.


Not for the casual biker: cycling the Gorge du Verdon.


Here's a feel-good article about people Collecting plastic debris from the sea.


Reuters reported that two French lawmakers have presented a bill to ban bullfighting.


The Wall Street Journal featured a short, sweet remembrance of the author's first attempts to speak to the Frenchman who later became her husband. Read it here.


Here's a nicely done diary of a birders' trip to Provence...

And one about visiting Cezanne's studio in Aix.

Finally! A tour operator that understands that not every traveler wants to be on the bus by 8 a.m.! Go here.


Starbucks is adapting to local tastes in France.


The Guardian ran a helpful guide to Summer in French cities including Arles, Avignon, Marseille and Nice.


In a book review/essay, the Financial Times calls the Gard "the secret South of France." Read it here.

OK, this one isn't about Provence but it's cool anyway: Glamorous camping (glamping!) in the Loire Valley.


Also from the Guardian, the ten best flea markets in France.


Exploring the perched villages of the Riviera.


Interested in real estate? The New York Times has a lovely house for sale between Arles and Avignon (1.2 million euro) and discusses the property market in the Bouches du Rhone today.


The Olive Oil Times (who knew?) ran a nice feature about Marseille and the history of olive oil.


If you're a rock climber or would like to be, here are some of the best spots in the region.


Market day in Aix...


Provencale Pizza from the Huffington Post...


What do you think happened when Carol Drinkwater tried to turn her French olive grove organic? Read all about it here.


Don't live in Provence? Pretend you do...by throwing this Provencale-style dinner party, complete with the right drinks, music, etc.


Here's an update on the Provencale winery that hired all those famous architects.


How about some tips for making your trip to France more affordable? Go here.


Want to see Jerry Hall in a swimsuit? Sure you do.


Finally, Brad and Angela are reportedly looking to buy a vineyard now that the lease on their Provencal chateau is almost up. Meanwhile I swear I saw them at Aldi the other day, buying cheap tequila and off-brand cat food...


Photo by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times