"It's a Doctor Who prop, circa 1967", said up a drinker sipping from the Coco Club in Verbier's Bespoke Alpine Peak. The cocktail for six, served in what looked like a giant upside down tooth studded with plastic diamonds, had taken two snow birds (Coco Club's hostesses in low-cut black and crystal tops) to haul it over. It costs a cool €300, and if you don't blink at that, you probably won't mind spending £4000 in the same venue, on the Chalet – a magnum of Krug mixed with Hennessy Paradis cognac, housed in a sculpted ice chalet.
Though not yet in the same glitzy league as exclusive Swiss resorts Klosters and Gstaad, welcome to Verbier as nightclub-in-the-Alps. Social diary favourites like Ed Spencer-Churchill party with Hugh Grant, and James Blunt recently bought a chalet here. This glitz is a tag the tourist office is doing its best to dismiss, preferring to position the resort as somewhere for serious skiers – the pistes here are challenging, the resort kept deliberately small and traditional in style – rather than for dissolute cocktail drinkers. But throw into the mix Sir Richard Branson and his new chalet, and you can see why the bling-laden column inches keep on coming.
Branson's The Lodge delivers the ultimate house party. It sleeps 18, plus a bunkroom for six children. There are two bars, a games room with pool table, and plasma screen TV the size of a London flat. A wall of wine racks, shelves of DVDs, Wii games, an indoor pool, steam room and spa treatment room mean you can play whatever the weather. Not that it isn't all done in the best possible taste. Traditional honey-coloured pine on the outside, The Lodge previously had the same "sauna-like looks" on the inside, according to a guide who worked here when it was a humble B&B.
The contemporary reworking of Alpine style took just over a year to complete, and cost £3.7m. It's easy on the eye, and soft on the body. The games room has a sofa that would comfortably seat 20. Tons of reclaimed larch replaces the pine beams, and clads any walls that aren't painted a chalky, textured cream. The flooring is thick planks of reclaimed oak. It's got a fantastic location, a five-minute walk from the centre of town and the ski lift, not that you'll have to do anything as normal as actually walk. Two black-windowed, discretely liveried minibuses are available 24/7 to ferry you around, whether it's to your next cocktail or ski session.
Post-piste, you can ski right to The Lodge, practically into the boot room with heated poles and personal box to store gloves and other paraphernalia. You know it's yours because your name is handwritten on a label. The same is true of rooms; your name is written on the door instead of having a room number. All of which seduces you into feeling you're a guest in a family holiday home, albeit one owned by one of the most famous families in the UK.
The Branson clan and friends stayed en masse over Christmas and New Year, occupying every available sofa and inch of floor space. Photos of the family sit on shelves in the dining room/lounge/bar on the ground floor. In one, Branson, looking suspiciously as though he was wearing his hot air balloon jacket (waste not, want not) stands on a snow-covered mountain, arm around son Sam's shoulders. All rooms have Bose digital radios and iPod docks, enormous bottles of Cowshed toiletries and fluffy robes.
The contemporary artworks on walls aren't necessarily to my taste (canvasses with abstract montages of the Eiffel Tower looked a little out of place in a Swiss ski resort), but nothing seemed bought by the yard. A vase in the vague shape of a shell looked expensive, but I turned it upside down to find it was £10 at Habitat. Ditto some African looking candles encased in wood, bearing the legend Zara Home.
Are there glitches? Well, the prices are eye-watering, though everything is included, from as much champagne as you can drink, to the services of top-notch ski guides, and spa treatments with the sublime Hannah. All the rooms are extremely comfortable, but the difference between the best two suites and the standard rooms is big – only the top two have click-action fireplaces, minibars and TVs. And if you're living the high life, you want to be able to see it. A chalet newly built in front of The Lodge has stolen the spectacular valley view. And not everyone is happy about Verbier's escalating prices. Recently, a syndicate of six Brits bought out popular piste-side restaurant Chez Dany (fantastic fondue and snails) to prevent it being turned into a chalet. A quick glance in estate agent windows and you see basic one-bed flats going for £300,000. On this basis, a week at The Lodge almost looks like good value.
Exclusive hire from £35,520 to £59,000 per week. Summer rates from £555 per person for three nights. www.thelodge.virgin.com. To book, contact Virgin Limited Edition (www.virginlimitededition.com; 0800 716919).
