Let’s be honest: when Val Thorens was artificially created back in the early seventies, nobody really had aesthetics in mind.
The claim was to build Europe’s highest, fastest, most bad-ass ski resort and all the cute, traditional santa-like stuff was left to Meribel and Courchevel, its more authentic counterparts in the lower two valleys of les Trois Vallées. For decades, nobody really cared to give Val Thorens an acceptable look and a lot of architectural atrocities were committed. These past few years however, a lot of effort has been put into granting the old lady a design facelift and Fahrenheit 7 is one if its best examples.
The hotel, formerly known as the Mercure, was a temple of everything impersonal and drab, until it recently got a makeover. It turned out te be an ode to seventies kitsch, from plastic phones to old lockers and chesterfields in the ski room –which was designed to host awesome après-ski parties. There’s velvet pluche everywhere, the furniture is retro and the place is riddled with vintage pictures of Val Thorens’ beginnings. Overall, it feels like you’re in an old episode of Thunderbird.
