Mont d'Arbois in Megève: skiing and a century of Rothschild history

Before the ski lifts, Mont d’Arbois is where Megève became a resort. It was here, in the early 1920s, that Baroness Noémie de Rothschild had a palace built, followed by a golf course, and where her family has remained present for over a century. Today, this massif, shared between four communes, is one of Megève’s three ski sectors, and the gateway to Saint-Gervais.

A baroness in search of her Saint-Moritz

During the First World War, Noémie de Rothschild, née Halphen, converted her Paris townhouse into a hospital. She frequented Swiss resorts at the time, Saint-Moritz foremost among them, and found the presence of Germans there disagreeable. She sought a French location capable of rivalling it. On the advice of her ski instructor, François Parodi, she settled upon the alpine pastures of Mont d’Arbois.

In 1919, she founded the Société française des Hôtels de Montagne. The Palace des Neiges, the Mont d’Arbois hotel, was completed in 1921. King Albert of Belgium spent the winters of 1922-1923 and 1923-1924 there, bringing considerable prestige to the place. In 1923, the baroness inaugurated a nine-hole golf course on the mountainside. In 1926, she entrusted her personal chalet to a young architect, Henry Jacques Le Même: it was his first work in Megève, where he would go on to design over 200 chalets.

One mountain, four communes

Mont d’Arbois is a gently sloping ridge, covered with pasture and forest. Its slopes belong to Megève to the south-west, Demi-Quartier to the north-west, Combloux to the north and Saint-Gervais to the east. Above 1,600 to 1,700m, the summit lies entirely on Saint-Gervais territory: the arrival stations of the Mont d’Arbois and Princesse cable cars are located there.

This geography explains the way one skis here. Three cable cars converge at the summit, each from a different slope. On the north side, the slope overlooks the Arve valley by nearly 1,300m; on the south side, it rises only 500m above the small Clapet valley. Mont d’Arbois thus serves as a link: one can travel from Megève to Saint-Gervais and then onwards to Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce without removing one’s skis. Between its two summit peaks, an associative astronomical observatory is installed at around 1,800m.

For details of runs, other sectors and the piste map, our guide to Megève’s ski area provides complete coverage.

The first lifts of the 1930s

Megève developed rapidly following the momentum generated by the Rothschilds. In 1933, the Rochebrune téléphérique, on the opposite slope of the resort, was France’s first aerial tramway for skiers. That of Mont d’Arbois followed in the years to come. The two massifs flanking the village were soon equipped, and the resort took on the form it still has today: a village at the centre, with ski sectors on either side.

Edmond, Nadine, then Benjamin and Ariane

Born in 1926, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Noémie’s son, took over. In 1963, he had the hotel on Mont d’Arbois renovated and purchased the neighbouring chalet of the Princess of Bourbon-Parme. In 1964, the golf course was expanded to 18 holes with nine new holes designed by British golfer Henry Cotton. That same year, Edmond made available land at Côte 2000 where the Megève altiport, at 1,472m, was established, following an idea by Michel Ziegler and Jacques Henri Bujard. In 1979, a chalet purchased from the Gervais family became the Chalet du Mont d’Arbois hotel, which his wife Nadine de Rothschild would oversee.

Edmond died in 1997. His son Benjamin and his wife, Ariane de Rothschild, took up the torch; Ariane played a part in the opening of the Four Seasons Megève. The Domaine du Mont d’Arbois today brings together luxury hotel accommodation, the restaurant Le 1920 and the 18-hole golf course.

The AEC tip. During season, leave the car at the chalet: the free ski bus drops you at the base of Mont d’Arbois from the town centre. And if you head towards Saint-Gervais, note the time of the last lift back to the Megève side before you descend too far.

Where to stay

Staying on the heights of Mont d’Arbois means having the lifts and golf course within reach, away from the bustle of the village. The centre and Rochebrune have other advantages, which we compare in our article Megève: which area to choose. AEC Collection selects chalets and apartments in Megève according to its selection criteria, on Mont d’Arbois as elsewhere in the resort.

A century after the Palace des Neiges, Mont d’Arbois holds the same promise: a gentle mountain, facing Mont-Blanc, from where you set off to ski in the morning and return at the light of evening.