Interview: Chalet Stones brings Rock & Roll to Chamonix

Hopping on the phone with Vanessa Carrington, we learned she was born to a German mother who had fallen in love with the country and the language, and in turn fought to instil the language in her daughter. Growing up, Vanessa tells us that she detested it, because it made her different from all the other kids her age. Fast forward many years post-begrudging fluency, when her English husband and her were looking for a place to move to be close to his family in Europe with a two-year old and a two-month old in tow, France was the easy choice. 

Vanessa Carrington and her husband initially arrived in beautiful Provence and stayed for almost a year. It was on a drive from Paris on their way to visit a friend when they were deciding between stopping over in Torino or Chamonix, that they discovered their future home for more than a decade, almost by accident. She fervently tells me how they just went to dinner, walked around the beautiful town, and both woke up the next day with the mutual desire to live in Chamonix as soon as possible. Three weeks after their overnight stopover, the Carringtons made the move.

What’s funny is we fell in love with Chamonix in the summer, without the skiing and the snow

Vanessa’s life has been rooted in real estate. She joyously tells us that she discovered this passion at 19 and never stopped, and just continues to add on to what she can do in the field. Her wide range of interests include real estate sales, long and short term rentals, renovations, construction, and now thanks to Chalet Stones: interior design. 

Half of the time they lived in Chamonix, this Chalet did not even exist. When they purchased the land where it stands now in 2011, it took 4 years just being in court to be able to get the building permits. Add in that the initial architect who had initially designed it for them fell ill, having to find another architect to take on the dossier of their previous, it was a rollercoaster to say the least. So it was only in 2016 that they finally started constructing the one-of-a-kind chalet that Chamonix had never seen anything like before.

I’m not on the right track unless the painter asks me “are you really sure you want to do this colour” several times then I know I’m off my mark.

She shares her initial doubts with us in building Chalet Stones. The move to go crazy in terms of designing this chalet, was either going to go very well or very badly. She had to ask: are people going to understand what I’m trying to do; to create a city chic chalet with a nod to the mountains, but with the elegance and the sophistication of a Paris or New York hotel.

Every single piece in the chalet was selected for its uniqueness, and while she wanted to go in the other direction when it came to traditional chalet design, she never wanted the guests to forget they were in the mountains. 

With multiple themed rooms ranging from The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis, Bruce Springsteen, Freddie Mercury, and even one dedicated to female artists such as Blondie, the beauty in Chalet Stones lies in the details. Whether it’s in the kitchen’s actual guitar strings between the glass of the cabinets, the hubcaps of a Rolls Royce in the Freddie Mercury room, or the art pieces on The Beatles and Kiss members made of paint swatches. The art in the house has a unique sense of humour, with fun nods to the musical figures they rely on to tie everything together. 

My feeling about luxury is that it needs to feel comfortable. You shouldn’t be afraid to sit on the furniture, or be afraid of touching things.. 

Fast forward mid-pandemic, Vanessa and her husband find themselves with two teenage kids, two cats, an unfinished construction project that they’ve spent 11 years of their lives on but were only spending one night in it before their flight the next day to leave Chamonix and move to California. 

And although she has never lived in Chalet Stones, she has tremendous pride in knowing that this project she spent a decade of her life setting out to do, was almost complete. She tells us that immense pride and joy comes from the words of the guests who stay at the Chalet and let her know how amazing the home she has created is.

Chamonix is a lot like a snow globe, a little fantasy world. And while building a house wasn’t easy but I knew in my bones and in my soul I could do something incredible

It was a normal day, halfway through the construction of Chalet Stones, as her kids played in the jacuzzi, and her husband was trying out the sound system when funnily enough, she realised the importance of this project to her. 

Her mom had bought a chalet in New York when she was younger, and it was probably the only chalet in the entire East Coast. But being German, it felt like home to her mother. Now here she was herself, many years later, in the country her mother had fallen in love with, (and one she likely would not have been able to thrive in if it wasn’t for her insistence to learn French) building a chalet of her own. She had come full circle.

To discover more beautiful homes, take a peek at our other selection of extraordinary home tours.