In the olden days, pre-Mr & Mrs Smith (est. 2003), when boutique hotels were still known as “nice, small, expensive hotels”, you had to finger a glossy mag if you wanted to ogle tasty places to stay. I was always particularly taken by Les Fermes de Marie, as featured in Harper’s & Queen. When it opened in Megève in 1989, its cosy, non-glitzy interiors and convincing aura of homeliness blew away the competition, Alpine and otherwise. The interior decorator and owner were one and the same: Savoie native Jocelyne Sibuet, who went on to establish a mini-empire in Megève with her then husband (the pair are still creative partners), Jean-Louis.
a shady, luxy small hotel close enough to St-Tropez to be cool, but far away enough to be restful
When their children – Marie and Nicolas, now second-generation hoteliers themselves – were young, the Sibuets summered in Provence, at an 18th-century farmhouse near Ménerbes in the Vaucluse, which they opened to paying guests in 2000. Next came Villa Marie, down on the Riviera: a shady, luxy small hotel close enough to St-Tropez to be cool, but far away enough to be restful. This summer, following its soft launch in 2013, the Sibuets’ third Provençal address opens for its first full season. Domaine de la Baume, is grand yet romantic, and it’s miles from the madding crowd.
La Bastide de Marie, Ménerbes
If you tour all three properties, you’ll get to see classic rural Provence, close a deal in St-Tropez (Club 55 – still got it) and hide from the paparazzi and/or tourist hordes, all on one hol. Just add Arles, Avignon and Nice if you want to tick all the boxes.
Bastide de Marie is my personal favourite: it’s closest to the Provence I know, without OTT aspirations to elite trappings, and has a working winery that lends it terroir cred. It still has the luxe factor, with two pools, a small spa, and a private house for hire a short walk through the vines, but its Provençal identity is intact, thanks to Mireille, your amiable, down-to-earth hostess, the good, traditional food, and a jolly apéro hour daily, which brings everyone together for a glass of the “Marie Blanc”. (If you prefer not to pass the time of day with fellow guests, you could stay in your room, go for a swim, or rent Villa Grenache.)
You don’t enter a lobby as such, but rather the sitting room, with a modern open staircase, double-height ceiling, monumental fireplace and piles of photographic books and mags (there’s a full library upstairs). The 14 rooms and suites are all different, and named for dreamy colours (Garance, Gris de Sauge, Bleu de Nîmes…), plus there’s La Roulotte, a gentrified gypsy caravan. My vote goes to the more feminine-looking rooms: Miel d’Oranger, with its rose fabric and half-canopy bed; and Ocre, which overlooks the scented parterre, and has a bath in the bedroom, behind an antique screen. The vinous landscape is gorgeous, and the bastide is guarded by lime, cherry, fig, cypress and olive trees. Whizzing up to Ménerbes on an electric bike is fun, and don’t miss a visit to chez painter Hervé Thibault (a key Sibuet co-conspirator) if you’re offered one – the interior he has created in a former garage near Gordes provides unique aesthetic thrills.
The buzz at Villa Marie is more glamorous, if perhaps a little soulless compared to adorable Mireille and the vines. But hey, we like soulless or we wouldn’t swarm down to the Riviera – and compared with the competition (Russian fave La Bastide de St-Tropez, über-snazzy Le Byblos), the Sibuet’s Ramatuelle perch is gentle and certainly friendly. When you aren’t down at the port or hanging out at the Places des Lices – reception will sort you out with Vespas – you’re likely to spend most of your time in the semi-open dining room and its stepped drinks area, overlooking the grotto-like pool area below. There are exquisite sitting rooms next to reception, too – but who wants to be indoors?
you can take breakfast on Villa Marie’s private boat, moored off the beach at La Moutte
If you leave your deep-coral sun lounger and explore a little, you’ll find stone terraces, aromatic and exotic planting schemes, shady ponds, box trees, cypress and pines; the house and its carefully carved out gardens occupy three hectares of pine forest overlooking the Bay of Pampelonne. Everything is intensely well kept, staff are switched-on, and the 45 rooms and suites are comfortable and boudoirish: in the old house, expect washed-out greys and lilacs, Missoni fabrics, lots of bathtubs-in-rooms, bay views and/or private balconies. There are two further suites and a prestige room in a new part of the hotel on the way to the pool. If you’re organised enough to be that romantic, you can take breakfast on Villa Marie’s private boat, moored off the beach at La Moutte.
Domaine de la Baume, Tourtour
The Sibuets, as you can tell, are dynamic types, even for hoteliers, and put immense creativity and energy into their houses. It took them only six months to restore Domaine de la Baume – which included tackling its 99 acres of garden, olive grove and horse paddock – in readiness for soft opening last summer. Progress made during the winter hiatus means that all 15 rooms and suites are now looking good, along with the branded spa, which wasn’t up and running when we visited. Jocelyne’s instinct for colour and high-end heimlichkeit is evident across the whole portfolio, but here, as well as the exuberant decor of Braquénie prints, Pierre Frey toile de Jouy, and antiques from Isles-sur-Sorgue and Villecroze (love the iron dogs), she has created perspectives from one room to the next, from staircase to corridor, to rival the incredible views from many of the bedroom windows.
The Expressionist painter Bernard Buffet lived and worked at Domaine de la Baume from the 1980s until his death in 1999. Some journalists may have wondered whether it would be infra dig to mention that Buffet died in one of the rooms; for me the dilemma is whether to say I thought I recognised the façade from the Russell Crowe film A Good Year, which was partly filmed here in the mid-00s.
Domaine de la Baume, Tourtour
The Buffet connection adds something extra-beautiful to the place, though its credentials as a luxury retreat are brilliant anyway. From welcome snacks of almond tuiles and Alain Milliat juices to seabass carpaccio with hazelnuts, and fantastic, very simple roast pigeon, the food is top-drawer: chef previously worked with Marc Veyrat and the Pourcel brothers in Montpellier. The grounds are heavenly, with mature plane trees, oversized horse chestnuts and cork oaks, as well as intriguing cacti and an agave plant; the French garden features parterre, white roses, santolina and lavender, an aromatic garden, a vegetable garden and other exotic plants like a cumin tree. It all shades away into the hills – one is very much not overlooked here. Playing pétanque at apéro time is charming, but I keep wanting to wander off, it’s so lovely.
At the appointed time, I do wander off for a massage in a cabanon next to a bathing pool in the woods. This is the moment when Provence stops feeling merely chic and tips over into full-on global lux territory. The house is grand – was built to be grand – in square, stonebuilt Provençal style: an 18th-century building with 19th-century additions. Tourtour, the nearest village, dates from the 12th century, and offers the only off-compound diversion you need bother with; this part of the Sibuet tour of France is about sybaritic seclusion. If it’s available, take the Abeille suite with the “BB” stained glass window, and stay as long as you can. C
La Bastide de Marie, Route de Bonnieux, Quartier de la Verrerie, 84560 Ménerbes
+33 (0)4 90 72 30 20, labastidedemarie.com
Villa Marie, Routes des Plages, Chemin Val de Rian, 83350 Ramatuelle
+33 (0)4 94 97 4022, villamarie.fr
Domaine de la Baume, Route d’Aups, 83690 Tourtour
+33 (0)4 57 74 74 74, domaine-delabaume.com
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