The Estate

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Jean-Marc Roques, an audacious architect, contributed to the creation of the Avoriaz resort in Haute-Savoie. Alongside the designers Elizabeth Brzeczkowska and Bojuslaw Brzeckowski, he founded the Avoriaz Architecture Workshop (AAA). Their ambition: to shape buildings in total symbiosis with their natural environment: raw wood, rock, slopes and light become their primary materials. The model of the Avoriaz resort will also be classified among the greatest contemporary mountain creations of the 20th century, praised for its audacity and harmony.
It is in this context of architectural renewal that intervenes Jean-Jacques Goupil, French industrialist, founder of the brand Fluocaril. A lover of nature and design, Goupil is not looking for an ordinary hunting lodge, but an exceptional place.
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In 1967, he therefore entrusted AAA with the design of La Roche Couloir, a hunting lodge designed as a true architectural manifesto: curved wooden roof, sculptural fireplace, perfect integration into the surrounding forest... Everything is designed to magnify the place without ever distorting it. It is a Miniature mountain, a rock located in the heart of the Chevreuse valley. True to his artistic sensibility, Jean-Jacques Goupil calls on Bernard Villemot, a famous poster designer, recognized for his creations for Orangina or Air France, sublimates La Roche Couloir through a series of illustrations, giving the place a singular, elegant and avant-garde visual identity.
The central point of the pavilion is the chimney: its sculptural shaft pierces the roof and rises outside, like the anchor point of an architecture that extends and rolls up. The roof, like a vast suspended sheet, descends lightly until it touches the ground. Inside, everything is organized around this same fireplace: a spiral staircase follows the duct, a sofa with organic curves, extends into a volute forming the bar. Everywhere, the lines are soft, the shapes are rounded even in the large convivial tables. The materials are both raw and noble. The roof, entirely made of chestnut wood, evokes rare know-how. This organic and ecological place is part of an architectural trend in line with contemporary challenges: rethinking the link between man, nature and architecture.

Today, La Roche Couloir has been taken over by the Domaines & événements group, which is bringing this historic site back to life through ambitious event projects, and is undertaking renovation work: transformation of spaces, modernization of infrastructures and equipment to host weddings, private events, seminars, and exceptional corporate events. This new orientation makes it possible to perpetuate the Domaine's heritage while integrating it into a modern and sustainable economic model.