Chalet Face Nord

North Facing Elegance

You approach the Face Nord and find a quaint building that hugs the mountainside like a classical mountain hut. It’s somewhat bigger than a hut but barely, although you know that appearences can mislead. This, however, raises your spirits. This chalet is part of the alpine landscape, not fighting against it with glitz or glamour.

What looked like a hut has that Tardis-like quality of growing as you go inside but the rustic quality continues. Old timbers, wooden benches, local stone. As you get the feel of the place, its underlying luxury starts to become apparent, becoming more elegant farmhouse than goat-herder’s shed. Chalet Face Nord is the beauty of alpine authenticity, not alpine kitsch, and is yet endowed with all the indulgences you would expect for your holiday.

From the entrance foyer with its separate boot-room (boot heaters are a modern invention that we wonder how we managed without. Chalet North Face understands that and has sneaked them into its discrete nods to the 21st century) you enter a living space that feels as though it has witnessed the lives of generations of a hardy mountain family. At the same time, it has the modern convenience of open plan and the fresh brightness of contemporary design. The charm is sustained even in the kitchen where appliances are encased in exquisitely crafted wood. The other end of the room, past the logs blazing in the fireplace of local stone, is graced by welcoming sofas and windows that invite your gaze to stretch across the glorious panorama of the mountain range on the other side of the valley.

On this floor you find the master bedroom, filled with light from windows on two sides, and its large en-suite bathroom. The next three bedrooms are down the stairs; they all offer an ambiance where life is tranquil, the rest of the world far away, you can linger in a bathroom where mellow wood calms your spirit, sleep is untroubled. But wait, isn’t there another bedroom? Chalet Face Nord accommodates ten, with an option for two extra children. Down some more stairs – but this is no basement, the chalet is pitched against a steep slope. Another bright, spacious double room and this one continues to an alcove where two children will delight in their fairy-tale bunkbeds.

On further exploration of this lowest floor, Chalet Face Nord reveals a treat that transforms it from a piece of living history right into the world of your perfect ski holiday. A spa! It has a generously sized sauna and a great big bubbling jacuzzi to warm through to your very bones and soothe well-worked muscles after their exertions of the slopes of the Trois Vallées. This is a long way from somewhere to tend your goats.

Here in your refuge, you might think you were on high pastures, away from the community of the mountain village and certainly from the bustle of one of Europe’s most sought-after ski resorts. But no. Courchevel Village is a walk away, as are ski lifts and slopes. Chalet Face Nord is part of the terrain, you are close to its heart.