8 chemin des Vendanges, Var
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Every visitor to Saint-Tropez ends up on the quay at some point, staring at the yachts and guessing who owns them. Very few ever step aboard. Arev, seven minutes on foot from the place des Lices, offers the next best thing. It is dressed as a Riviera yacht club of the sixties, and membership arrives with the room key, no boat required. The name means sun in Armenian, and it occupies the site of an old village hotel that locals loved and then missed for twenty years.
The look is the work of the Spanish designer Luis Bustamante, and in a town where so many new hotels have gone white and minimal, it comes as a joyful surprise. The five buildings take their colours from the village houses, and inside, navy and white stripes run everywhere, picked out in red. There is no reception desk. Guests arrive in a lounge under vaulted ceilings lined with books, as if signing into a club. Many of the thirty-five rooms and suites have a balcony or a garden of their own, and families can take the Master Suite or La Maisonette en Pierre, each with an entrance of its own.
Like any good club, it has grounds to match, and a club day to go with them. It can start on the floodlit padel court and drift on to the heated pool, with a second one for children, or to a spa that works with seawater, algae and marine sand. The two hectares of garden, where some twelve hundred plants are still filling out, gather around the Place des Oliviers, a small square modelled on the place des Lices. At sundown the members end up at the Champagne Lounge, built around an ancient olive tree.
The Strand, an old Saint-Tropez name revived for the hotel's restaurant, serves the coast with confidence, from Mediterranean tuna to spaghetti with sea urchin. In summer it moves under the olive trees as The Strand Al Fresco, with sharing plates from the grill and live music. Afterwards the Champagne Lounge and Q's Bar keep the club going late.
The cleverest thing about Arev, though, is its position. It sits on the quiet edge of the village, hidden enough to feel like a find, yet the hotel's cheerful shuttles and its bicycles bring the port and the best restaurants into easy reach. That puts the hotel right on the line between Saint-Tropez's calm and its bustle, and guests choose their side by the hour. The concierges are quick to book a table or a game of pétanque with a French champion.
The club has a few quirks. Not everyone will warm to so much colour, and the gardens are still young. Breakfast, served à la carte, can be slow, and parking is not included. There is no private beach either, so the sands of Pampelonne mean a drive or the shuttle. Its guests are couples and young families who want Saint-Tropez with the comforts of a resort, a stroll from the market rather than a long drive from it. Summer brings the buzz, while the shoulder seasons bring the village.
On the quay, the guessing game goes on. At Arev, nobody needs a yacht to belong to the club.
In the garden
The master gardener, Stephan Rabany, takes hotel guests on private tours of the grounds, with aromatic plants, homemade limoncello and olive oil tastings along the way.
La Maison, the main building, keeps the lobby, the library, the spa, the fitness room, The Strand and Q's Bar under one roof. The library lounge is lined with white bookshelves and set with a cream sofa and red armchairs against navy and white stripes, a quiet place to wait for a room, read, or meet before dinner.
Seven rooms and suites in the Pool Villa open straight onto the heated main pool, each with a private entrance and its own terrace. On the first floor, the AREV Pool Suite adds a 12 m² terrace above the loungers and the pool bar. The main pool is kept for adults; children under 14 swim in the separate family pool.
On summer evenings The Strand moves outdoors to the Place des Oliviers as The Strand Al Fresco, with tables under strings of white lanterns, cocktails and live music. Indoors, the restaurant serves Mediterranean cooking with fish brought in by the village fishermen and herbs from the hotel's own garden. The Champagne Lounge and Q's Bar take over after dinner.
The hotel's own square borrows its idea from the place des Lices: four centenary olive trees, stone benches, fountains and parasol pines. By day there is coffee from a vintage food truck, two pop-up shops and a game of pétanque; at sunset an outdoor bar opens, with a live trio or a DJ. Garden tours with the master gardener start here.
At a glance
Where
8 Chemin des Vendanges, 83990 Saint-Tropez, Var; on the edge of the village, a seven-minute walk from its heart; Pampelonne beach a short drive. Toulon airport about 50 minutes, Nice and Marseille airports about 1 hour 30, Saint-Raphaël station about 50 minutes, La Mole airport for private aircraft 25 minutes; helicopter transfers from Nice or Cannes; private transfers from Nice, Marseille, Toulon, Cannes, Aix-en-Provence, Monaco and Les Arcs-Draguignan
Why this one
Seven minutes to the centre.
Place des Oliviers, from coffee to cocktails.
One for adults, one for families.
The Edit Notes
The five residences behave differently. La Maison holds 16 rooms and suites under the same roof as the lobby, library, spa, gym, The Strand and Q's Bar. The Pool Villa's seven rooms open straight onto the main pool, lively by day. The Garden Villa gathers ten junior suites around a garden and a pool of their own, a little apart. The Garden Cottage and La Maisonette en Pierre stand alone, for those who want a door and a terrace nobody passes.
Children are welcome, but the heated main pool is kept for adults and children under 14 use only the family pool. For a family of four, the Junior Suite with Terrace takes two adults and two children under 13. Larger groups do better in a Master Suite, with its own entrance, which opens up into two bedrooms for five or four bedrooms for nine, or in La Maisonette en Pierre, a standalone two-bedroom villa. Interconnecting rooms are arranged at booking.
The hotel has no beach of its own. The village centre is a seven-minute walk; beyond that the Hosts arrange a shuttle on call, run by the valet team in the hotel's open Méhari, and electric bicycles are on loan. The Hosts also book Pampelonne beach clubs, restaurants and boat charters, and arrange transfers from Nice, Marseille, Toulon and Cannes. Cars go to valet parking; whether parking is charged should be checked at booking.
AREV stays open through the year, but it closes briefly in some winter months for maintenance and new additions, so winter dates are worth confirming first. Summer brings The Strand Al Fresco on the Place des Oliviers every evening and the full pool scene; in the cooler months the restaurant moves indoors and themed evenings take over. Cancellation notice depends on the season: a month in high season, fifteen days in the shoulder months, three days in low season.
The price question
The money buys a resort-style hotel within walking distance of the village: two pools, a spa, a padel court, a restaurant with its own square and a team that books the beach clubs. It does not buy the sea: there is no beach, the gardens are young, and the main pool is kept for adults. The comparison is a village hotel plus a beach club and a taxi.
It works for couples and young families who want Saint-Tropez on foot and a pool and spa to come back to, for three or four nights in early summer or September. Anyone who wants to wake up by the sea, or a family set on swimming together in one pool, is better placed elsewhere.
Les Hauts de Loire
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Villa Grand Voile
Christopher Coutanceau's hotel in La Rochelle, a villa facing the Atlantic shore, a short walk from his restaurant by the water.
The Extra Edit
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