NEW HOT AND CHIC SPOT: LA CO(O)RNICHE PYLA-SUR-MER

(Note: the video is in French, as most of the clients right now are French, but I think you'll get the idea of what the new hotel is all about)
I LOVE THE OCEAN, AND I LOVE FRANCE AND THUS I LOVE ..Normandy, Brittany and some parts of the French Riviera, but as of late, my heart belongs to the Aquitaine area – Biarritz, Landes and The Aracachon Bassin with its fashionable yet underplayed and yet undiscovered beach chic, Cap Ferret and now near the giant sand dunes (the largest in Europe) across the bay at Pilat, is a a new and modern and hip ( I hate to use that word as I am a ‘stuffy’ person, if it be known) fabulous new hotel called La Co(O)rniche designed by Philippe Starck.
La Co(o)rniche is a hotel in an extraordinary location. The key landmark in the Pilat-Plage district, the vantage point over the Arcachon basin, backing onto the highest dune in Europe, it is suspended between sea and sky, nestling between sand and pines.
It is a mythical place which evokes the golden age and invention of the Côte d’Argent. A former 1930s hunting lodge in the heart of a preserved site, where aristocracy and the upper middle classes, attracted by the quality of the air, the magic of the site and the fashion for bathing in the sea, came to have Louis Gaume construct them a Neo-Basque home sheltered among the pines.
The landscape, combining several extraordinary phenomena, could not leave anyone unmoved. It reveals the immense Atlantic and the entry to the Arcachon basin, closed in the distance by the point of Cap Ferret.
“Like all places where there are major tide patterns, it is an extremely diverse landscape,” continues the designer, who is a regular visitor to the area and loves the ocean. “It provides incredible walks, even onto the seabed, and in the primal soup which reveals itself, you sense how and why life began.”
The hotel, its rooms, its restaurant and its terrace are the gatehouse of these marine depths, a “natural theatre with gigantic dimensions, where the planet’s forces are in constant interaction.” There we can admire the variable geometry of the Banc d’Arguin, an immense sandy spit which emerges at certain times of the day and, reread in the language of reality the finest pages from Victor Hugo’s “The Man Who Laughs”, whose evocations of the moon, attraction and dangerous and beneficial currents inspired the design of the rugs which Philippe Starck designed for the hotel’s rooms.
This perpetual astonishment is continued in the hotel’s unique location “placed on a sort of magic, a sort of miracle, an impossibility which is the largest dune in Europe”. A mass of Surrealist sand, a “grand site national” over which La Co(o)rniche has a unique vantage point.
Along with this evocation of the sea and the sand, I should add that of the ubiquitous pines. The Pilat-Plage district which borders La Co(o)rniche has developed in perfect harmony with them. The clairvoyance and perseverance of the Gaume family, which managed its development, ensured that the architecture blended in completely with nature. This is how only a few minutes from Arcachon, La Co(o)rniche nestles into surroundings which are preserved and still vibrant with that atmosphere so sought-after by the elite of the last century
http://www.lacoorniche-pyla.com/

The Hamptons of Bordeaux - A Secret Spot for Tourists to France

As the labor day holiday weekend approaches and 2.5 million Los Angeles citizens are getting ready to flee the city, I sit here and dream of a time spent 2 years ago in France in a little known area (by tourists that is) just 40 minutes west ( based on traffic and its never 40 minutes as it always crawls) to get out of the city of Bordeaux.
The area is known as the Bay of Arcachon or you could cal it, The Hamptons of Bordeaux. The setting is so enchanting that Napoleon III decreed it a bathing resort in 1857. The aristocracy duly flocked. Their legacy is an enclave of 230 palatial villas in the ‘winter city’ where Bordeaux’s elite spend their holidays. It’s not trendy, not by a long shot; it’s a look at the past, the past of 1899 France. It’s quiet and serene, but great sea views.

The bay is known for producing 60% of the oysters eaten in France. There are scores of oyster fisherman shacks all along the La Teste de Buch and one can sample their finds; try Angelika Herman in hut 166 for her catch right off the boat. There is even an oyster museum. Seaside cafes line the beach ( Café de la Plage being the oldest since 1915) and there are lovely boats rides in the large bay.

Nearby is the fantatic and largest sand dune in Europe, the Pyla-sur-Mer and a new hotel has just opened next to it, designed by Phillippe Starch called La Coorniche.

I dream of sitting near the bay, watching the birds sweep in and out over the azure blue water and putting down a dozen or two oysters.