Megeve Alpine Village
— the bell over a square the snow holds.
Not only on a wall.
“Megève sits below Mont Blanc, in the Haute-Savoie. A medieval village a Rothschild turned into a winter resort in the 1920s as a French answer to St. Moritz. Calèches still cross Place de l'Église in winter, runners on the cobblestones. The old church bell tower has been there since the thirteenth century. The square hears it again every morning before the lifts open.
Megeve Alpine Village, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Megève is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department of southeastern France, on the western flank of the Mont Blanc massif at roughly 1,113 metres. The commune covers about 44 square kilometres, with a permanent population near 3,000 that doubles or more in season. The medieval village center predates the resort by centuries; the parish church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste sits on Place de l'Église, the central square. The nearest rail station, Sallanches-Combloux-Megève, lies about 12 kilometres north in the Arve valley. Three local ski areas, Rochebrune, Le Jaillet, and Mont d'Arbois, connect the village to the wider Évasion Mont-Blanc domain shared with Saint-Gervais and Combloux.
The center of Megève is medieval, pedestrian, and paved in cobblestone. The square is closed to cars; the principal winter traffic is horse-drawn calèches that cross Place de l'Église between the church and the rue Charles-Feige. The parish church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste dates in part to the thirteenth century, with later modifications, and its bell tower carries the village's daily rhythm. Older buildings around the square are built of cut stone and timber with the broad eaves of Savoyard tradition. The cobbles spend most of the winter under snow; when they surface again in spring the smell shifts from woodsmoke to wet stone overnight.
Megève is a winter resort first. The ski season runs roughly from mid-December to mid-April, depending on snowfall, across the three local areas and the wider Évasion Mont-Blanc network of about 445 kilometres of pistes. The village was developed as a winter destination in the 1920s by Baroness Noémie de Rothschild, who set out to build a French alternative to St. Moritz after the First World War. Summer is quieter, with hiking on Mont d'Arbois and the surrounding alpages, and the lifts running on a reduced schedule. The shoulder months, late April through May and late October through November, are when the village empties and the locals get the cobblestones back.