Restaurant Pépé - Lily of the Valley

A native of a small village near Lille, Philippine Leclercq, an enthusiastic and willing young woman, is, at just 27, assistant manager of the 5-star "Lily of the Valley" hotel opening in June 2019 in La Croix Valmer. After a master's degree in communications and marketing, followed by a second in business and luxury tourism, she's looking for a summer internship.

I've been lucky enough to spend all my vacations since childhood in Sainte-Maxime, where my parents had a pied-à-terre. Even as a child, I used to say: "This is where I want to live". So naturally, this is where I wanted to look..

And it worked! She was hired for the season at the Byblos, the legendary Saint-Tropez hotel run at the time by Stéphane Personeni, current manager of Lily of the Valley.

It was he who recruited me in February 2019 as a trainee assistant when he took charge of the Croix Valmer project. I'd just graduated. I arrived for 6 months, it's been 4 years.

"Pipa", as everyone here calls him, doesn't come from a hotel background..

But I was instantly won over! I love excellence and making people dream. I like the attention to detail, the care, the made-to-measure... I also like the spirit of mutual aid, sharing and conviviality among the staff of this house. Perhaps it's because it's the fruit of a love affair: the owner has been vacationing here for as long as she can remember.

For her, the hotel's strong point

Is the environment! We're right in the middle of nature, and designer Philippe Starck came up with a hotel that blends right in. There's no noise, and you have a panoramic view of the Golden Isles..

The year-round establishment specializes in wellness and fitness, and part of the hotel is dedicated to it..

We have a team of specialized coaches who accompany guests wishing to take part in sporting activities: kayaking, paddle-boarding, mountain biking, hiking along the coastal path at Gigaro, where our two beach restaurants are located.

The hotel participates in the life of the community with children and the elderly, and sponsors events.

I also organize beach clean-ups with the staff, and we hunt for cigarette butts and litter with the coaches. So the link with the agents of the Cap Lardier National Park was forged very quickly.

When the Park came to her to introduce her to the brand

We immediately decided to get involved. We're very happy to be part of this network, even though we're already involved in this dynamic: we're careful to save water and energy, and to choose the right cleaning products. We have our own vegetable garden, and 90% of our produce is local. But the brand will enable us to evolve even further. I've also taken a training course from the National Park so that I can communicate more effectively about its missions and the brand; this fully meets one of our objectives, which is to make our customers more aware of the environment around them. In the collective imagination, a 5-star hotel is synonymous with opulence and waste... Our role is to dust off this image and show that even in a 5-star hotel, you can have convictions and still offer excellent service. We're also going to raise awareness among all our staff and relay the messages on our social networks and the establishment's website, which has a very large following... This will give the National Park and the brand a great deal of visibility.

Born in Haut-Doubs, 10 km from the Swiss border, Stéphane Personeni comes from an Italian family named after a small village near Bergamo, "Ca'Personeni"..

In my family, who came to France in the 50s, the tradition of hospitality is very strong, so there have always been a lot of people at home... And if, very early on, I wanted to work in the hotel trade, I think that's where it comes from.

He went on to attend a cookery school in Strasbourg, another for sommellerie, bar management, receptionist training, then maître d'hôtel..

Then I went to London, where I met an owner who was looking for a Frenchman to run his restaurant. At the age of 21, I spent 18 months in the south of England.

Returning to France for his military service, he went back to the USA where he worked on cruise ships; and then family life made him want to return. He joined the Barrière group at the Royal Hôtel in Deauville, where he rose from banqueting manager to restaurant manager. He then moved on to the Majestic in Cannes, then the Martinez, where he became manager in 2006. When the palace was sold, he was hired as director of the Byblos in Saint-Tropez, and oversaw the opening of other group establishments in Courchevel and Deauville. In 2018, he learned that Lily of the Valley was looking for a manager.

That's when I met a man, Alain Weil, and I made up my mind immediately. Firstly,because of one sentence, when he said to me , "Stéphane, we're going to build something, and whatever happens, we're going to see it through!"And secondly, because for the first time, we weren't renovating: we were creating! That's above everything else. Creating a place in the heart of nature, focusing on local products around the notion of well-being... I arrived on September 3, 2018 in an Algeco with my computer, I followed the whole worksite and it was a formidable challenge.

His credo today:

We try to do our best, to make it a beautiful, original home, close to nature where customers come to enjoy the beauty that surrounds them... We've developed a lot of things with respect for the place: we buy everything local, we treat our waste, we try to do as much as possible to get closer to zero impact... We try to live up to what nature offers us and it's not marketing or com' that only work for a while... It starts from a conviction. The owner has been coming here since 1963, and I know that preserving this place is crucial for him. That's the message he gave Philippe Starck from the very first brief. It's also why, when we discovered the Esprit parc brand, we said to ourselves: that's us! And not: what's in it for us? But rather: what can we do for the National Park, for our community? It's not a question of profiting from the flow, but of sharing, improving, participating in the dynamic... We're delighted to be joining the network of marked partners. And what I want is for the 400 summer employees to understand that they have to work for the place where they live and work. I want my children to be able to come to magical places, in the mountains or like here... So let's do things right! The luxury world has a duty to be exemplary and to act. And what I'd like is for the Esprit Parc brand no longer to be something exceptional, but to become the norm!