Le Chalet Des Peupliers

A fifteen-room chalet at the foot of Courchevel

Le Chalet des Peupliers stands in Le Praz, the lowest and oldest of the Courchevel villages at 1,300 metres, where the streets are still lined with old timber farm chalets rather than boutiques. The house holds fifteen rooms in total, a scale that keeps it closer to a large family chalet than to a resort hotel: one dining room, one bar, one lounge, and staff who know their guests by the second day. Larch panelling runs through the ground floor, and the building looks out onto the forest that climbs towards the pistes.

Rooms panelled in pale wood, balconies onto the trees

The bedrooms carry the same alpine vocabulary as the public rooms: pale timber walls and ceilings, fur and sheepskin over the beds, low warm lighting, and wide windows opening onto balconies. Family rooms are part of the mix, cots and babysitting can be arranged, and breakfast can be brought to the room. The kitchen prepares special diet menus on request. Staff work in French, English, Russian and Portuguese, which is worth knowing in a resort with this spread of visitors.

Sauna, hot tub and a ski room by the door

Skiing here is organised around a heated ski storage room and direct ski-to-door access, so boots and skis never travel further than the entrance. What follows the last run is a sauna and a hot tub, then a bar with a billiard table and a shared lounge. In summer the garden and sun terrace take over. Private parking comes with the house, which matters in a village where roadside space is short, and dogs are welcome throughout.

Le Praz: a lake, an Olympic jump, a year-round village

Le Praz keeps a permanent population and the habits that go with it, which is rare this high in the Tarentaise. Its lake is used for kayaking, paddleboarding and fishing in summer and lit for firework evenings in winter. Above the village stands the Olympic ski jump built for the 1992 Games, where jumpers still train through the year and where spectators can watch from the outrun. Savoyard restaurants and a handful of more ambitious tables sit within walking distance of the chalet.

Straight onto the Three Valleys

The gondola out of Le Praz climbs to Courchevel 1850 and to the link towards La Tania, which puts the whole Three Valleys network and its six hundred kilometres of linked pistes within reach without a car or a bus. In summer the same village is a trailhead: hiking paths and cycling routes start at the edge of the forest, a few steps from the door.

Why this address is on Stay in Alps

Courchevel is usually approached from 1850 and its palaces. This chalet offers the opposite entrance to the same mountain: a village address with wood, a sauna, a ski room and a lift, sized for families, dog owners and skiers who want their evenings quiet and their mornings on the Three Valleys.