Survey & blueprint
Four seasons on the plot, a topographic scan, and an ink elevation drawn by hand before anything is digitised. We only draw what the slope allows.
- Site & snow-drift study
- Sun-path modelling
- Hand elevation + 3D massing
ALPINE VILLA ATELIER — EST. 1998
MOUNTAIN cozy HOME
DISCOVER VILLAS
We draw it in winter.
You live in it by the next one.
Every CHALET villa begins as a single ink line on paper and ends as a warm room at 1 800 metres. Hand-cut larch, quarried stone, and glass engineered for the coldest night of the year.
KNOW MORETHE ATELIER
We build houses that hold heat, light and quiet. A CHALET villa is not a hotel suite dropped on a slope — it is a slow, warm, deliberate home, cut for its own valley, its own weather, and the family that will wake up in it.
FROM BLUEPRINT TO HOME
Five winters of drawing, one lifetime of living
Structure raised
A glulam and solid-larch frame cut in our Valais workshop, numbered, trucked up the pass and raised in eleven days — often between two snowfalls.
- Off-site precision cutting
- Snow-load engineering to 4.5 kN/m²
- Zero-waste timber yield
Stone & skin
Stone quarried within forty kilometres, laid dry by two masons. Larch cladding left raw so the façade silvers with the valley instead of against it.
- Local quarry sourcing
- Dry-stone columns & hearth
- Untreated silvering larch
Envelope & warmth
Triple glazing with a warm-edge spacer, 340 mm of wood-fibre insulation and floor loops fed by ground-source heat. The house holds its temperature for days.
- Passive-grade airtightness
- Ground-source underfloor heat
- Heat-recovery ventilation
Keys & first fire
We hand over with the hearth lit, the beds made and the ski room stocked. Then we come back every autumn for twenty years to check the timber.
- Furnished handover
- 20-year façade care
- Year-round caretaking
About
the Mountain
The mountain is not a backdrop; it is the first client. Before a single line is drawn we spend four seasons on the plot — tracking sun angles, snow drift, wind corridors and the exact hour the valley goes gold.
What we hand back is a villa that belongs there: low, warm, generous with glass where the view earns it, and closed where the north wind arrives.
SELECTED VILLAS
0Villas delivered
0Years at altitude
0Average build height
0Clients who refer us
THREE MATERIALS, NOTHING ELSE
Larch, stone, glass — and the light between them
Silvering larch
Slow-grown, untreated, mounted on an open rain-screen. It arrives honey-gold and settles into the same silver as the rock behind it.
Quarried stone
Split, never sawn. Every column and hearth is laid dry by hand, so the wall keeps the grain and the shadow of the mountain it came from.
Deep-winter glass
Triple-glazed, argon-filled, warm-edge. Big enough to hold the whole ridge line, tight enough that the room stays 21° at minus twenty.
Villa Larix · the hearth
INSIDE
Cozy is an engineering decision
Heated stone floors
Ground-source loops under 60 mm of quarry stone. The floor is the radiator, and it stays warm through the night.
Double-height hearth
A dry-laid chimney that runs the full section of the house, so the mass of the stone releases heat long after the fire is out.
Ski room & boot dryers
A heated arrival room by the garage court — skis, boots and gloves dry by morning without ever entering the living space.
Spa & plunge terrace
A sheltered, snow-lipped pool held at 36°, with the ridge line at eye level and nothing between you and it.
OWNERS
“They spent a year watching our plot before they drew anything. The first winter in the house, we understood exactly why.”
“Minus twenty-two outside, twenty-one inside, and the heating had been off since lunch. That is the whole pitch, really.”
“Eleven days from the first truck to a raised frame. Our neighbours are still talking about it four seasons later.”
WHERE WE BUILD
Five valleys we know by heart
- Chamonix1 640 m
- Verbier1 920 m
- Zermatt2 080 m
- Cortina1 510 m
- Hafjell1 200 m
COLLECTIONS
Three ways to arrive at a warm room
Refuge
180 – 260 m² · 12 months
from CHF 1.9M
- Two-bedroom compact villa
- Timber frame + stone base
- Passive-grade envelope
- Furnished handover
Chalet
320 – 480 m² · 16 months
from CHF 4.4M
- Four to five bedrooms
- Double-height hearth & gable glazing
- Ski room, spa, garage court
- Ground-source heating
- 20-year façade care
Grand Villa
520 m²+ · 22 months
from CHF 8.6M
- Estate-scale, multi-wing
- Staff quarters & wellness level
- Bespoke joinery workshop run
- Year-round caretaking
QUESTIONS
Before the first line
Everything else, we answer on the plot — usually with boots on.
Do you build outside the Alps?
We build wherever there is real snow load and a valley worth answering to — the Alps, the Dolomites, Norway, and selected sites in the Caucasus and the Rockies. If the site needs a helicopter, we will tell you honestly what that adds.
How long does a villa actually take?
Twelve to twenty-two months on site, plus four to seven months of design. We deliberately spend a full year of seasons on the plot first — that year is the reason the rest runs on schedule.
Can we change the plan mid-build?
Yes, up to the point the frame is cut. After the workshop run begins, structural changes get expensive fast, so we freeze the shell and keep the interior open for as long as possible.
Who looks after the house when we are away?
Our caretaking team. Snow clearing, heating checks, a lit fire and a stocked fridge before you land, and a full timber inspection every autumn for twenty years.
Is a CHALET villa energy-efficient?
Every villa is built to passive-grade airtightness with 340 mm of wood-fibre insulation and ground-source heat. Typical heating demand is under 15 kWh/m² per year — roughly a tenth of a conventional chalet of the same size.
START
Tell us about your valley
Send us a plot, a postcode, or just a feeling about a place. We answer every enquiry ourselves within two working days — and if the site is wrong for a villa, we will say so first.
- Studio14 Rue du Lyret, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc
- WorkshopRoute de Martigny 22, Valais
- Directhello@chalet-atelier.example · +41 27 000 14 98