A 17th-century convent becomes Nice's best new hotel

After a persuasive call from the mayor of Nice, the French hotelier Valéry Grégo reluctantly decided to visit the abandoned 17th-century convent that sits on Colline du Château (Castle Hill) watching over the city. As he walked in, he felt compelled to rescue it not only as a building on the brink of ruin, but as an act of ‘cultivating civilisation’, as he puts it. ‘I thought, someone needs to do something, otherwise this place will die, as will we.’ So taken was he by its perfect proportions and its spiritual stillness that he began a 10-year restoration to reinstate its purpose as a place where people live together – monastic, but appropriate for this century. Hôtel du Couvent, which opened in late June, is a feat of architectural preservation and a study in how treading lightly can achieve lasting greatness. ‘I see my intervention as like the guy with the broom: sweeping away, then putting things back delicately,’ Valéry says. ‘I want people to walk in and ask what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years.’

His touch, however, far exceeds his modest reflection. The roof was replaced and structurally weak beams were repurposed to make furniture. Walls were replastered with lime and floors were stripped of cement repairs and returned to wood and terracotta, as they would have been in the early 19th century. The Visitandines, a Roman Catholic order of nuns who arrived at the convent at this time, occupied it until the 1980s, when the four or so nuns still living there left for the Monastery of the Visitation at Voiron. It had lain empty since then.

Despite the sweeping of Valéry’s broom and the stylish pieces by design studio Festen that now furnish the 88 bedrooms, there is an echo as you walk down the long steps joining those of others who came before and those who will come after you. Valéry had worked with Festen on previous hotel projects, including Les Roches Rouges on the Côte d’Azur and Le Pigalle in Paris, so it felt like a fitting continuation of their creative collaboration.

‘Every room that had a function, kept its function,’ he says, pointing out the bakery and herbalist, and the nuns’ cells that remain bedrooms. The library is now lined with old editions featuring the work of L’École de Nice artists and those with connections to the city – notably Yves Klein, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall, drawn by its light and canvas of marine blue stretching into the horizon. (It was on holiday here in the 1950s that Klein first experimented to create the piercing, powdery colour now known as International Klein Blue.)

Though no walls or windows were removed or added to the three original buildings, contemporary adaptations have elevated the interiors from convent simplicity to five-star comfort. Carefully curated sculptures, artworks and textiles found in Italy bring character to the large bedrooms, alongside bespoke oak furniture and deep sofas. Kitchens equipped with Lacanche cookers and inviting dining and living areas encourage longer stays in the apartment suites. And generous Italian marble bathrooms are a feature of every room.

A new building houses further rooms in the same monastic style, clad in more sustainable hemp, wood and lime. Below, an underground wellness area has been carved out with a focus on movement – ‘sports without tools’, as Valéry says, referring to yoga, dance and meditation – as well as a swimming pool exposed to the elements via a circular opening in the ceiling, through which sunlight cascades as if down into a well. There is also a succession of wet rooms inspired by Roman baths to detox the body and aid circulation.