Lily of the Valley

There is a version of the Saint-Tropez peninsula most visitors never quite reach: past the port, past the beach-club strip at Pampelonne, along the quieter southern coast toward Cap Lardier, where pine forest runs down to a handful of protected, undeveloped beaches. Lily of the Valley sits on a hillside above one of them, Plage de Gigaro, and its architecture makes a point of the setting. Philippe Starck laid the hotel out as a loose cluster of low, vegetated-roof pavilions rather than a single grand facade, stepped into the pine-covered slope so the property reads less like a conventional resort and more like a hillside hamlet that happens to have a very serious training facility.

That distinction, contemporary wellness village against grand hotel, is close to the entire point of the place. Lily of the Valley opened at the end of June 2019, the project of Alain Weill, the French media entrepreneur behind NextRadioTV, BFM and RMC, and his daughter Lucie Weill, who left a career in product development at Givenchy to build it with him. It stands on the site of the Souleias, a modest three-star hotel the family had owned at Gigaro for decades before deciding, rather than renovate it, to demolish it entirely and start again. What replaced it was built around structured wellness, fitness and nutrition rather than nightlife or Belle Epoque grandeur, and it remains one of the more ideologically consistent hotels on this coast.

Why It Stands Out

Most wellness hotels retrofit a spa into an existing resort formula. Lily of the Valley reversed the sequence: an entire five-star property built around a sport and nutrition programme first, with the rest of the experience, architecture, dining, interiors, arranged to support that premise rather than compete with it. Starck’s design brief kept every structure below the surrounding treeline and out of sight from the water, a constraint that shaped the whole footprint, spreading the hotel across a scattering of low houses rather than a single block, so the pine forest and the Cap Lardier nature reserve beyond it remain the dominant visual fact of the property.

The other distinguishing fact is the programme itself. The Shape Club’s Sport, Weight Loss, Detox and Better Ageing tracks are run with physician and nutritionist Jacques Fricker and built around genuine physiological assessment, body-composition testing, personal training, targeted recovery treatments, rather than the looser, menu-of-treatments approach common to resort spas. Lucie Weill has been explicit in interviews that the intent was never austerity: the programmes are built around pleasure and flavour as much as discipline, a deliberate rejection of what she has called “sanitised wellness.”

Architecture

Starck’s brief here was landscape discipline rather than architectural spectacle. The hotel sits on the Colline Saint Michel above Gigaro, on the edge of the Cap Lardier headland, land classified under the Natura 2000 conservation framework, and the design condition attached to the project from the outset was that no structure could exceed the height of the surrounding pines or be visible from a boat offshore. Starck answered that constraint by breaking the hotel apart into a loose village of low pavilions with flat, planted roofs rather than a single hillside block, working with Triptyque Architecture on execution and Tangram on the landscaping. The design team preserved the site’s protected pines and several century-old olive trees through construction, and developed a tinted concrete on site, mixed from aggregate sourced at local quarries, specifically so the buildings would read as an extension of the hillside’s own colour and texture rather than an imported material.

The effect on arrival is closer to discovering a hamlet than checking into a resort. Paths thread between pavilions at different levels of the slope, with tree cover doing most of the work of privacy between one building and the next, and the sea, so often the dominant visual event at a Riviera hotel, reveals itself gradually, in framed glimpses, rather than as an immediate establishing shot. It is a building that behaves like a considerate guest on its own hillside, an unusual posture for a five-star property in a region not typically known for architectural restraint.

Interior Design

Inside, the material language stays consistent with the architecture’s understatement: the same locally tinted concrete continues from the exterior into walls and floors, set against dark hardwoods, natural leather and woven textures that keep the palette tactile rather than glossy. Starck’s interiors lean into a Mediterranean register without falling back on the region’s more predictable shorthand of white linen and blue-and-white stripe; the tones read warmer and earthier, closer to sand, stone and driftwood than to postcard Provence.

Public spaces carry the same restraint as the guest rooms. Furniture is generously scaled but not ornate, lighting stays low and warm rather than theatrical, and the overall impression is of a design that wants a guest’s attention pointed outward, toward the pines and the light shifting across the hillside through the day, rather than inward toward the room itself. It is a considered kind of luxury, more about material honesty than visible expense.

Atmosphere

The register at Lily of the Valley sits closer to calm and purposeful than to the see-and-be-seen energy that defines much of the Saint-Tropez peninsula in July and August. Guests on a Shape Club programme tend to set the tone: mornings built around a fitness class or a treatment, afternoons split between the pool and quiet stretches of reading or rest, evenings unhurried. Even guests booked on a simple room-only stay tend to absorb something of that rhythm, since the hotel’s own infrastructure, the health-forward restaurant options, the spa’s structured schedule, the general absence of nightlife on site, nudges the pace downward rather than up.

That is not to say the property is austere. The pools, the beach club down at Gigaro, and the sea-facing terrace at Vista all carry a genuine holiday register, and the hotel’s own stated philosophy leans hard into pleasure rather than deprivation. But the baseline mood here is unmistakably wellness-forward rather than party-adjacent, a meaningful distinction for anyone choosing between this stretch of the peninsula and Saint-Tropez proper.

Rooms and Suites

Accommodation in the hotel’s main hillside village runs to 38 rooms and 6 suites, spread across the low, vegetated-roof pavilions rather than concentrated in a single building. Room categories run from Classic through Superior and Deluxe, with Deluxe Sea View and Garden Deluxe Sea View options at the top, generally in the 35 to 40 square metre range; suites, including a Shape Club-branded category aimed at guests on a wellness programme, run larger and add more generous terraces.

A further tier of pool suites sits lower on the property, closer to the Beach Club, offering more privacy and direct pool access, and at the top of the range are two villas. Villa W, a three-bedroom retreat tucked into the hillside below the main resort, is built around an infinity pool that runs the length of its terrace with a roughly 180-degree view across the bay; a second pool villa sits closer to Gigaro. Across every category, the interiors carry Starck’s own material signature, tinted concrete, dark wood and leather, and most rooms open onto a private terrace angled toward either the sea or the pine-covered hillside.

Dining

Dining at Lily of the Valley runs across several distinct venues, split between the hilltop hotel and its beach club down at Gigaro. Vista, the principal restaurant, is a light-filled, sea-facing room serving a Mediterranean and Provencal menu under Vincent Maillard, the hotel’s chef and food and beverage manager since it opened, who trained under Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy before joining the property and has since built close relationships with regional producers. Club House, a second venue geared toward Shape Club guests, serves a lighter, dietetic menu developed with nutritionist Jacques Fricker, though it is generally open to any guest wanting a healthier option.

Down at the Beach Club on Plage de Gigaro, two further restaurants, Brigantine and Pepe, handle beachside dining a few steps from the sand, Brigantine the more substantial of the two, Pepe leaning toward lighter snacks and drinks through the day. The kitchen’s guiding idea across the group is that health-conscious cooking need not sacrifice flavour or generosity, a position the hotel has been fairly explicit about: menus are designed to feel indulgent even where they are calorie-aware, since the wellness programmes depend on guests associating the food with pleasure rather than restriction.

Spa and Wellness

Wellness is the organising idea of Lily of the Valley rather than a department within it, and the Shape Club, the hotel’s 2,000-square-metre wellness centre, is built accordingly. The centre operates on three stated pillars, sport, treatments and nutrition, each staffed and programmed with enough depth that the hotel functions as a legitimate destination for guests pursuing a defined physical goal rather than a loose spa weekend.

The nutrition side is directed by Jacques Fricker, a physician and nutritionist known for developing a structured, sustainable approach to weight management, and his input shapes both the Shape Club’s meal plans and, to a lesser extent, the menus at Vista and Club House. On the sport side, the centre runs upward of seventy weekly fitness classes across formats including aqua boxing, cardio sculpt, HIIT, TRX and gentler mobility and yoga sessions, alongside one-on-one personal training. Guests beginning a structured programme are assessed first, with body-composition analysis and strength and mobility testing, to set a personalised baseline before the coaching schedule begins.

Facilities include a heated, semi-Olympic outdoor pool built for serious lap swimming rather than lounging, seven treatment rooms, a cryotherapy chamber, hydrotherapy and hammam and steam facilities, and cold-immersion options used for recovery between training sessions, an emphasis on physical recovery that separates the Shape Club from a conventional resort spa menu. The four flagship programmes, Sport, Weight Loss, Detox and Better Ageing (the last added to the roster in 2024, focused on longevity and functional mobility rather than aesthetic goals), are each sold in 4, 7, 10 or 14-day blocks, with a wellness advisor checking in through the day to keep a guest’s schedule, meals and energy on track. Weight Loss has reportedly been the bestselling of the four since launch, though the hotel is careful to frame all four programmes around sustainable, pleasure-forward habits rather than short-term deprivation.

Experiences

Much of what there is to do at Lily of the Valley happens inside the Shape Club’s own programming, but the setting on the Cap Lardier headland opens up a genuine stretch of coastal and outdoor activity beyond the spa schedule. The Sentier du Littoral, the protected coastal footpath that runs the length of this stretch of headland, is accessible near the property and makes for one of the more scenic guided or self-directed walks on the peninsula, tracing pine-backed cliffs and coves rather than the built-up shoreline further north.

Watersports, paddleboarding, kayaking and canoeing among them, are arranged through the Beach Club at Gigaro, which favours that kind of low-key, human-powered activity over the superyacht culture found closer to Pampelonne. The hotel can also organise excursions further afield along the coast. For guests wanting a change of register from the wellness programme, day trips into Saint-Tropez itself, or to the vineyard country inland around Gassin and Ramatuelle, are straightforward to arrange, though the hotel’s own culture leans toward treating those as occasional outings rather than the centrepiece of a stay.

Who It Is For

Lily of the Valley suits travellers arriving with an actual purpose: a structured sport or weight-management programme, a genuine reset from a demanding year, or simply a preference for a Riviera hotel that takes fitness and nutrition as seriously as it takes design. Couples looking for a calmer, more purposeful alternative to Saint-Tropez’s louder hotels will find the register a close match, as will solo travellers, given how much of the Shape Club’s programming is built around individual assessment and coaching rather than group activity.

It is a considerably weaker fit for travellers chasing the peninsula’s nightlife and beach-club scene, or families wanting an activity-packed, child-centred resort holiday; the hotel accommodates families, but its rhythms, early spa hours, health-forward menus, structured programme schedules, are built with adult, goal-oriented guests in mind first.

Best Time to Visit

The Riviera’s conventional high season, from May through September, brings the reliable sun and warm sea that make the most of Gigaro beach and the hotel’s outdoor pools, with July and August the busiest and warmest stretch, and June and September offering a quieter, slightly cooler alternative with much the same beach weather. Because the Shape Club’s programmes run year-round and do not depend on beach conditions, the hotel also functions as a legitimate off-season destination for guests focused purely on the wellness side, with spring and autumn offering mild temperatures well suited to outdoor fitness classes and coastal walking.

How to Get There

The closest airport is Toulon-Hyeres, roughly an hour from the hotel by road. Nice Cote d’Azur Airport, the region’s larger international gateway with a wider range of long-haul and direct connections, sits about 1hr20 to 1hr30 away by car, a transfer that can lengthen considerably in July and August as traffic backs up through and around Saint-Tropez. The hotel does not operate a scheduled airport shuttle, so most guests arrange a private transfer or rental car in advance; a helicopter transfer from Nice is also a common option among guests staying in the villas, arranged privately rather than through the hotel directly.

Nearby Experiences

Central Saint-Tropez sits roughly 20 to 30 minutes away by road, on the opposite side of the peninsula, and remains the obvious excursion for guests wanting the harbour, the boutiques, and the market at Place des Lices, best visited outside the hotel’s own programme hours as a half-day trip rather than a nightly habit. The town’s contrast with Lily of the Valley’s own quieter register is part of the appeal for many guests: a dose of Saint-Tropez spectacle followed by a return to the hillside’s calm.

Closer to the hotel, Plage de Gigaro itself, backed by the protected Cap Lardier headland, remains one of the last largely undeveloped great beaches on this part of the coast, with the Sentier du Littoral offering walking access to smaller coves further along the headland. The hilltop village of Ramatuelle, known for its vineyards and Provencal streets, sits between the hotel and Saint-Tropez and makes an easy stop for guests wanting a change of pace from the beach and the Shape Club schedule alike.

Things to Know Before Booking

Guests should decide up front whether they are booking a room on its own or one of the Shape Club’s structured programmes, since the two are priced and scheduled differently and the programme track requires committing to a minimum four-night block with a set daily rhythm of classes and treatments. The hotel’s own culture leans firmly toward wellness over nightlife, worth knowing for guests expecting the livelier scene found in Saint-Tropez proper. Because the property is spread across a hillside village of several pavilions, guests who want to minimise walking between their room, the Shape Club and the restaurants should ask about proximity when booking a category. Airport transfers are not included as standard and are worth arranging in advance, particularly in peak summer months when regional traffic can extend the drive from either Toulon-Hyeres or Nice.

Sustainability

Lily of the Valley sits within a Natura 2000-protected zone on the Cap Lardier headland, and the hotel holds the Esprit Parc National ecotourism label recognising properties operating consistently with the neighbouring Port-Cros National Park’s conservation goals. That relationship to the land shaped the building itself before it shaped any subsequent policy: the low, vegetated-roof pavilions and the decision to develop a locally sourced, on-site tinted concrete rather than import finished materials were, from the outset, environmental commitments as much as aesthetic ones, and the construction process was designed specifically to preserve the site’s existing pines and several century-old olive trees rather than clear them.

On the sourcing side, the hotel has stated a preference for exceptional local and seasonal produce over organic ingredients shipped in from further afield, an approach that favours shorter supply chains over an organic label alone, and its dining and wellness programming is built around that same local-sourcing logic. As with any hotel-authored sustainability programme, guests weighing these commitments heavily in a booking decision should confirm current specifics, energy and water measures, waste handling, certifications, directly with the hotel ahead of a stay.

Practical Information

Lily of the Valley is located at Colline Saint Michel, Boulevard Abel Faivre, Quartier de Gigaro, 83420 La Croix Valmer, on the Saint-Tropez peninsula. Check-in begins at 4:00pm and check-out is at noon, with early or late requests handled subject to availability. Rates start from around EUR 700 per night for entry-level rooms, with the Shape Club’s structured wellness programmes priced separately and sold in 4, 7, 10 or 14-day blocks; pricing climbs well beyond the entry rate in July and August and for the villas. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World collection and operates year-round. Most leisure guests stay four to seven nights, while guests on a full wellness programme typically match their stay to the length of the programme itself.

Editorial Conclusion

Lily of the Valley is not really competing with the grand Belle Epoque hotels and party-adjacent beach clubs that define most outside impressions of the Saint-Tropez peninsula. Its argument is quieter and more specific: that a five-star hotel can be organised around genuine fitness and nutritional structure without becoming clinical, and that a building can sit inside a protected headland without dominating it. Starck’s low, tree-height architecture and the Shape Club’s physician-led programming are two expressions of the same underlying discipline, restraint used deliberately rather than apologetically. For travellers arriving with an actual goal, physical, restorative or simply a preference for a more considered kind of Riviera luxury, that discipline is precisely the point.