Cheval Blanc St-Tropez: Season, La Vague d'Or and How to Book

Cheval Blanc St-Tropez is the summer maison: a house on Plage de la Bouillabaisse, within walking distance of the village, on a property that dates from 1936. LVMH bought La Résidence de la Pinède in 2016, Jean-Michel Wilmotte transformed it, and it joined the brand as Cheval Blanc St-Tropez in May 2019. It opens from May to October only (the 2026 season closes on 11 October), keeps about 30 rooms and suites around its own beach, and is home to Arnaud Donckele's La Vague d'Or, three MICHELIN stars.

It also never had a room on our booking engine. On 1 October 2026 we checked four test stays and a 12-month calendar: no rooms at any point, including May to September 2027, well inside its season. Hotel Byblos Saint-Tropez, the other St-Tropez hotel we track, was blank in every month too. Here are the verified facts, what we measured, and how a room at the maison is actually secured; for the whole brand, see our guide to all six maisons.

Rooms, the Villa Riviera and the Beach

Counts vary by document. The current factsheet lists 19 rooms, 5 junior suites, 4 suites and 2 duplex suites, 30 keys in all, and the May 2026 press kit agrees on 30; the maison's home page says 32 rooms and suites plus the Villa Riviera, and the MICHELIN Guide lists 32 rooms. The Villa Riviera is the private option, 400 m² with its own pool. Everything else turns toward the water: the maison's own beach, with 60 loungers, and a heated infinity pool kept, in the press kit's words, "continually at 30 degrees".

La Vague d'Or and La Terrasse

Arnaud Donckele has been chef at La Vague d'Or since 2005. It won its second MICHELIN star in 2010 and its third in 2013, it holds three stars in the 2026 guide, and Gault & Millau gives it five toques and 19/20. Augustin de Margerie is chef de cuisine and Thierry Di Tullio runs the dining room. It serves from May to October, every evening except Wednesday, and Wednesday is Riviera Nights (Soirées Riviera) at La Terrasse, which won its own MICHELIN star in 2024.

Donckele also runs Plénitude at Cheval Blanc Paris, which holds three stars too. And in the village, at LVMH's Hotel White 1921 on the Place des Lices, Arnaud Donckele & Maxime Frédéric at Louis Vuitton has held a MICHELIN star since 2025.

Spa and Signature Touches

The Cheval Blanc Spa by Guerlain has five treatment rooms, including the Orchidée Salon, with a hammam, an experience shower, a snow shower and an ice fountain, plus a hair studio. The house scent, Riviera Chic, is by Thierry Wasser, and the maison shows a collection of Roger Capron ceramics. It is a Palace on Atout France's 2026 list, alongside Cheval Blanc Courchevel, Cheval Blanc St-Barth and Cheval Blanc Paris.

Cheval Blanc St-Tropez by Our Numbers

On 1 October 2026 we priced the same stays at every hotel through our own booking engine (the one behind hotels.biirdee.com) and scored the 100 most recent verified guest reviews at each hotel ourselves. The test stays were 10–13 Nov 2026, 27–30 Dec 2026, 12–15 Mar 2027 and 15–18 Jul 2027, and a 12-month calendar priced the same two-night midweek stay (Tuesday to Thursday of the third week) in every month from November 2026 to October 2027. Rates are the lowest per night the engine charges at booking; taxes the hotel collects at checkout are extra, and live rates change daily, so these are the rates of 1 October 2026.

Cheval Blanc St-Tropez showed no rooms on any of the four stays and none in any month. The winter months are expected, since the maison is closed from its October closing until it reopens in May, but May to September 2027 fall squarely inside its season and were just as empty, as was our 15–18 July 2027 stay. Hotel Byblos Saint-Tropez, Forbes Four-Star, was blank on every date too, and neither hotel has a review on our platform.

For context along the coast, Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, a Four Seasons hotel and Forbes Five-Star, released rooms in just one month of the twelve (May 2027, at $5,382 a night) and had only a suite left for our July stay, at $8,897 a night. Our reading: on this coast, peak summer at the top tier is sold by the hotels themselves, not through open engines.

One disclosure: our agents have priced Cheval Blanc only twice, and our booking records (stays from November 2024 to April 2027) show no Cheval Blanc bookings, so this page reports engine checks and published facts, not booking anecdotes.

What It Means for You

An empty calendar is not a sign of an empty hotel. Our view: a house of about 30 keys, open roughly half the year, with a three-star restaurant in the building, has little reason to put rooms on open engines, and on our evidence it does not. For you, that means two things: you cannot benchmark Cheval Blanc St-Tropez's price online, and the rate, the room and the terms come from the maison on request. The one Cheval Blanc whose rates we could check across a full year is Cheval Blanc Paris; Cheval Blanc prices has the detail.

How a Room Is Actually Secured

Every stay starts as a request. The dates, the room type (a room, a suite, a duplex or the Villa Riviera), the party size and, ideally, the nights you want at La Vague d'Or go to the maison's reservations team, directly or through a travel advisor, and the maison confirms what it can, with its rate and its terms. We make these requests for our clients; how to book Cheval Blanc covers the process for all six maisons.

When to Go

The window is May to October. Inside it, plan around the kitchen as much as the weather: La Vague d'Or serves from May to October and closes on Wednesdays, when La Terrasse hosts Riviera Nights. With about 30 keys and a season of roughly six months, our advice is to ask for July and August as soon as you know your dates.

Outside the season, Cheval Blanc Courchevel takes over in winter (from 4 December 2026), and Cheval Blanc Paris was bookable on our engine in every month. For the rest of the village and the coast, see the best luxury hotels in Saint-Tropez and the Riviera's Palace hotels.

Cheval Blanc St-Tropez FAQs