From the outside, the new 30-key Cheval Blanc St-Tropez looks like a princely villa harking back to the Riviera’s golden age. But inside, it’s all light modernism, midcentury ceramics, and pops of regal nautical blue.

Formally known as La Résidence de la Pinède, the property’s current iteration comes care of luxury-leader LVMH, whose Cheval Blanc portfolio also includes ‘maisons’ in Courchevel, St Barth, Randheli in the Maldives, and soon Paris. Each house has a signature identity colour, and St Tropez’s is a smooth Riviera blue.

Architect and interiors star Jean-Michel Wilmotte uses the shade – an aristocratic cousin of cobalt – as a punchy inflexion throughout, though his first point of inspiration comes from ceramicist Roger Capron, whose art has been housed at the villa since the 1930s when it was a private home.

A contemporary of Picasso, you can now admire Capron’s original ceramics in the fresh, restrained white-and-oak-accented guest rooms, which start from €850 per night, based on two sharing. The maison’s cool insulating hallways are graced with his geometric, colour-blocked tables and original murals. Even the line drawings from his personal sketchbooks have been lifted to adorn custom rugs throughout. The vividly scribbled sketches of women featured on the spa area rug are already a quick favourite with the staff and guests alike.

Outside, the aesthetic shifts to the neo-classical: a characteristically Tropezian courtyard patio of pines and creamy white parasols butt up against a well-kept beach – the ideal spot to wind down the summer’s long afternoons.

Plage de Bouillabaisse, 83990 Saint-Tropez, France,

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