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Built in 1862 by the Swiss Delegation to showcase their expertise in woodworking and carpentry, it was exhibited at the 1889 Paris World's Fair, alongside a certain Eiffel Tower. A merchant bought it, had it dismantled, and rebuilt it entirely in Olivet, on the banks of the Loiret. The story might have ended there, had Claude Brouet, the former editor-in-chief of ELLE and Marie Claire, not found an old postcard depicting the chalet at a flea market in 2007 and sent it to the Moireau family. Valérie Roy—Alice and Émile’s mother, a painter living in Olivet—set out to find it. When she did, it happened to be for sale. She bought it on a whim and turned it into her studio.
Fifteen years later, Alice and Émile decided to keep this house tied to their mother's memory and bring it back to life. After months of renovation and countless local antique hunts, the chalet opened to travelers in 2023. Inside, the paintings on the walls are their mother’s, and some of the cushion covers feature her sketches; outside, 350 m² of garden slope gently down to the Loiret. The house hosts only four guests, and everything seems perfectly measured for that scale: two bedrooms, four bicycles, and a wooden boat ready to drift down the river.
Alice, who as a child used to go to the Friday market with her father before cooking with him, even left her little carnet of local spots: Besnier bakery for bread, Muzard for meat, La Grange aux Fruits for vegetables.
