Nicolas%20Anetson%2038%201%401x.webp)
Les Cimes Bleues, the spirit of La Baule without the pastiche
In La Baule, nothing is ever quite neutral. Over time, the villas, institutions, and customs have created such a powerful image that any attempt to evoke it risks overdoing it. Giving a new hotel a local identity without disguising it as an old seaside house is, in essence, the challenge that Dorothée Delaye has met with intelligence and subtlety.
In La Baule-les-Pins, Les Cimes Bleues has just opened in a seven-story contemporary building with curved facades designed by ASA Gimbert, an agency founded in 1982 by Joël Gimbert. As the first address for La French Collection, the hotel brand of Groupe Giboire, the establishment features 101 rooms, a spa, a bar, and the Scapa restaurant. It is a scale large enough that the decor cannot rely on mere gimmicks.
Dorothée Delaye is not from La Baule. This is undoubtedly what allowed her to observe the resort with the right amount of distance, avoiding both postcard clichés and indifference to the location. She focuses less on its most obvious signs and more on what truly structures its lifestyle: sports, clubs, show jumping, sailing, tennis, and golf. These are codes familiar to both locals and visitors, transformed into a vocabulary rather than decorative accessories. "Sport chic" serves as the project's common thread, yet each space offers its own interpretation.
La Baule in the background
MAELLE%20LE%20MEN-01%201%401x.webp)
In the lobby, the social heart of Les Cimes Bleues, the interior designer creates the atmosphere of a contemporary La Baule clubhouse. The plant-filled atrium softens the height of the space, while the curves of the furniture, leather-wrapped columns, stone, glass paste, and bronze tables, and Pierre Frey and Élitis textiles compose a dense, yet never ostentatious, landscape. Golf ball motifs, stripes, and a few marine evocations (including a monumental chandelier punctuated with mooring buoys) are present enough to tell the story of La Baule, yet quirky enough to never mimic it.
This same grammar changes its accent at Scapa. Originally conceived as an extension of the clubhouse, the restaurant took on a more Italian tone as its menu was finalized. Dorothée Delaye envisioned a sort of Milanese-Bauloise brasserie, inspired by the Italy of the 1970s and Carlo Scarpa. Terracotta, chocolate tones, wood, ceramic, and almost kinetic patterns warm up a building that could have felt cold due to its large windows. The space is enveloping, fragmented into different perspectives and banquettes, so that one quickly forgets its actual dimensions.
Nicolas%20Anetson%2025%201%401x.webp)
In the rooms, the sports theme becomes more graphic. Wimbledon green, Atlantic blue, and clay-court orange distinguish the different atmospheres. The headboards, lighting, tables, and storage units were all designed specifically for the project. The closet doors evoke the lines of a tennis court, while some shelves freely mimic the shape of greens. The process could have become systematic, yet it remains light, held together by a subtly charming palette and the precision of custom craftsmanship.
MAELLE%20LE%20MEN-12%201%401x.webp)
Because almost everything here was designed specifically for the space. Dorothée Delaye relies on three designers within her studio to draw chairs, banquettes, headboards, and lampshades. This dedicated production certainly meets the economic realities of the hotel industry, but above all, it serves as a tool for uniqueness: the pieces created for Les Cimes Bleues will not be moved to another address six months later.
Finally, at the Alaena spa, the narrative moves away from sports fields to reconnect with nature. Inspired by the "golden hour," the space combines stone, natural fibers, bronze, golden yellow, and pink in intentionally flattering light. Here, Dorothée Delaye takes the opposite approach to the clinical white spa, creating a transition zone—a warm bubble where the experience begins even before the treatment.
Nicolas%20Anetson%201%401x.webp)
While Les Cimes Bleues will welcome vacationers, families, and seminar groups all year round, as well as locals coming for a drink or dinner, its main strength is that it never presents this hybrid nature as a forced program. The hotel already feels lived-in.
By giving each space its own story without ever over-explaining the scenario, Dorothée Delaye succeeds in anchoring a new building in local culture. Not by reconstructing La Baule, but by giving it a new, must-visit address.
MAELLE%20LE%20MEN-02%201%401x.webp)
Nicolas%20Anetson%2038%201%401x.webp)
Nicolas%20Anetson%2033%201%401x.webp)
Nicolas%20Anetson%2034%201%401x.webp)
Nicolas%20Anetson%20%201%401x.webp)








