A still winter, high above the slopes.
Solace sits away from the noise of the snow front, in the quietest corner of Val Thorens, Europe's highest resort, where the snow holds through the season when it runs thin elsewhere. Boots on, skis on: the door is thirty meters from the piste, first day of the season to last.
The fireplace runs on wood, the ski room dries boots and gloves overnight, and the Trois Vallées opens at the end of the street. Four bedrooms, four takes on the same idea: a tweed-jacketed gentleman watches over Baron and Squire, a graphic stag over Monarch, a fox and a cow over Den, the children's room tucked under the sloped roof.