Byblos Saint-Tropez

Every summer night in Saint-Tropez ends with the same small drama. When the music stops in the small hours, half the town wants a taxi at once, and the lucky ones join a slow crawl of headlights out of the village. The Byblos solved that problem long ago. Les Caves du Roy, the most famous nightclub in town, lies beneath its pool, so getting home takes nothing more than a flight of stairs. For many guests, that cellar is why they book.

The house above it is a village, or a very good imitation of one. Built in the late sixties as a Provençal hamlet in miniature, it is a small labyrinth of ochre and pastel, where stairs climb to little squares and terraces open onto other terraces. The idea was a place where the jet set could play at village life without the outside world getting in. The real village begins just beyond the gate, at Place des Lices, but inside the walls the illusion has had long enough to become real.

The village square is the pool. The houses crowd around it and the lounge bar sits at its edge, which makes it the hotel's living room by day, a place where nobody sunbathes anonymously. There is always an audience on the balconies above, and being seen is half the pleasure. Behind those balconies, no two rooms are alike. A handful of signature rooms and suites have lately been redone by Laura Gonzalez like bedrooms in a seaside family home, with antiques and hand-painted ceramics, while some of the others look a little tired.

Days here start late and move slowly. Breakfast on the square is long and lavish, and the beach is the only outing that needs a car. The hotel's own club, Byblos Beach, lies on the sand of Pampelonne, under rope parasols. When the heat eases, guests drift back to the square or to the Sisley spa, resting up for the night ahead.

Evening begins on the roof, at the Sky Bar, with the bay below. Dinner can mean wandering down to the port, or a table at Il Giardino, beside the pool under a green pergola. Then, some time after midnight, the village opens its cellar. At weekends in high season the door turns hundreds away, and even residents are not guaranteed a table, though the concierge is well placed to help. Once inside, the guests who sleep upstairs are the only ones who never have to think about getting home.

Living above a nightclub has a downside or two. Music below and a busy square outside the window make for lively nights, so light sleepers should ask for a quiet room. In peak season, dinner tables are scarce as well. In winter the shutters stay closed. The Byblos belongs to visitors who come to Saint-Tropez for what happens after dark, in pairs or in gangs of friends, and three or four nights are about right. June and September offer the same evenings with fewer people.

In the rest of Saint-Tropez, a night out finishes in a scramble for taxis. At the Byblos it finishes on a staircase, and the only challenge left is remembering the room number.