1 Chemin des Echos, Seine-Maritime
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The name suggests Roman legions. The truth is gentler. César was the present owners' great-grandfather, and his conquest consisted of planting pine trees on the windy land behind the cliffs of Étretat. They took, and then some. Today some twenty hectares of Austrian black pines stand around the old family houses, and Les Pins de César has become a small hotel hidden in its own forest. Veni, vidi, he planted.
The estate sits in a green valley in a wooded nature reserve, a short drive from the white cliffs and the sea. Most of the buildings date from the 1950s, scattered among the trees like a family hamlet, with a few contemporary cabins added for good measure. It is still run by the same family, and it shows. The soundtrack is goats and horses from the fields rather than traffic, and the main thing guests are asked to manage is their own pace.
There are only nineteen rooms, each shaped by the old building it sits in, so no two are quite alike. The look is country house with a confident hand, bold colours on the walls and freestanding baths in the bathrooms. Some rooms sit up in the eaves, while families and groups can take a whole house, the Chalet, among the pines.
Evenings are domestic in the best sense. There is no formal restaurant. Dinner is served by reservation in the lounges, usually with a fire going, which makes it closer to being fed by friends who happen to own a forest than to dining out. The bar keeps hours that have a way of stretching. Breakfast in the winter garden is the grand gesture of the day, laid out on a scale that makes lunch feel entirely optional.
The best seat on the estate is the outdoor hot tub, sunk among the pines, especially on a cool evening, when the steam drifts up into the branches and nobody is in any hurry to get out. For something more energetic, the old customs officers' path follows the chalk cliffs all the way to Étretat, where the famous arch draws crowds all summer. Back under César's trees, the crowds never quite arrive.
Families do well here, and children tend to split their time between the indoor pool and the goats. Couples come for the quiet. Rooms look onto trees rather than the sea, and arriving by car is close to essential. Anyone after designer polish, or a dining room to dress up for, will be happier in a grand hotel on the coast.
César's pines were presumably meant to break the wind coming in off the Channel. A century on, they shelter a rather different crop: guests who came for a weekend and keep finding reasons to stay another night.
Family album
César's daughter Marie-Antoinette spent her holidays here with her nine children. In the late 1950s one of them built a small wooden house on the land, and it grew as his own nine children arrived.
The Comfy Luxe rooms are the smaller doubles, 20 to 25 m², yet each has a double freestanding bath in the room as well as a walk-in shower and a 180 cm bed. Walls run to deep greens and dusky pinks, with patterned cement tiles underfoot. The Deluxe rooms, 30 to 35 m², keep the same bath-and-shower pairing and can take an extra bed.
There is no restaurant room. Dinner is cooked in sauce, in the pot or over a wood fire and served by the fire in the lounges, among leather sofas under old beams, with a wine list and Champagne behind it. The cooking is generous and seasonal rather than elaborate, and verbena, apples, pears, berries and eggs come from the estate itself.
The NUXE Spa is built around a covered, heated pool of 12 by 5 metres, the obvious place to be when the Channel weather turns grey, with windows along one side onto the gardens. A sauna and a large outdoor Japanese bath complete it, and a second sauna stands out in the woods. Massages, facials and body treatments are given by candlelight.
The Chalet is a small house of its own a few steps from reception, its steep gable among tall trees. It has two double bedrooms and a children's room on the mezzanine, a bathroom with a double bath and walk-in shower, an equipped kitchen and a lounge with a fireplace opening onto the garden, so a family keeps its own hours with full hotel service.
At a glance
Where
1 Chemin des Echos, 76280 Saint-Jouin-Bruneval, Seine-Maritime, in the Pays de Caux; a valley leading down to the sea, five minutes from the cliffs of Étretat, a few kilometres from Le Havre, about two and a half hours from Paris
Why this one
Twenty hectares, thirteen of them woodland.
Served in the lounges, not a dining room.
Covered, heated, twelve metres long.
The Edit Notes
The Garden Rooms stand apart at the edge of the woodland, in the rhododendron garden, each with a large deck and its own Nordic bath outdoors. They have no WiFi and no television; books, board games, yoga mats and Mölkky take their place. The zinc-and-slate shower is reached by stepping five paces out of the room itself. That works for a couple who want to disconnect in summer; anyone who needs to work, or dislikes crossing outside on a cold morning, should take a room in the houses.
There is no restaurant room on the estate: dinner is a hearty, seasonal plate served by the fire in the lounges, and on fine days the alternative is a barbecue or picnic basket carried to a chosen corner of the grounds. Several packages build in a dinner platter for two. For a proper restaurant, the hotel points guests to its Auberge Bout de Bois, five minutes away by road. Decide which evening is which when booking.
The Chalet is the one booking that houses a whole family under its own roof: two double bedrooms, a children's room on the mezzanine, a double bath, a kitchen and a lounge with a fireplace, a few steps from reception and with full hotel service. Otherwise only the Deluxe rooms list an extra bed, on request and subject to availability; the Comfy Luxe rooms do not. Children have the covered pool, tennis, pétanque and 13 hectares of woodland paths to fill the day.
The estate lies at the end of a valley at Saint-Jouin-Bruneval, five minutes by road from the cliffs of Étretat and a few kilometres from Le Havre; a car makes the coast, the town and the hiking country easy, and electric bikes cover the country lanes nearby. The packages listed on the official site, with spa access, breakfasts and Champagne, exclude Saturday nights and bank holiday weekends, so a Sunday-to-Thursday stay is where the offers apply.
The price question
The money buys a family estate of meadow, gardens and woodland a few minutes from Étretat, with large bathrooms and a covered pool for grey days. It does not buy the sea from the window, a dining room to dress for, or uniform rooms: a Garden Room and a Comfy Luxe are very different nights. The real comparison is a seafront hotel on the Côte Fleurie.
Book it for two or three nights in the off-season, for a couple who want the spa, the woods and a fire, or a family that takes the Chalet. Anyone who wants the beach on the doorstep, room service at full hotel scale or a gastronomic dinner each night is better placed on the coast.
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The Extra Edit
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