Every October a family writes to ask whether they should move to Verbier. My answer is to rent for one school term first, and here is why, and which of our homes I would take.
Every October the same letter arrives. A family, two children as a rule, occasionally three, who have spent a week in Verbier each February for two or three winters and who, somewhere on the road back to Geneva, allowed themselves the thought that they might live here. By autumn the school has published its January dates, and the question has become a practical one: whether the idea holds up against a whole winter.
I live here, with two young sons, so I have an opinion. It is not the one you might expect from someone whose work is finding you a chalet.
Not yet
Moving a family to a mountain village is a large decision that presents itself as a small one. A week in February is the finest week of the year: clear skies, new snow, a chef in the kitchen and nothing to arrange. It says nothing about a Tuesday in late January, when it has snowed through the night, the drive lies under half a metre and the school run begins with a shovel. Nor about the quiet weeks between the holidays, when the snow is the best of the season, the mountain is close to empty, and a table at eight in the evening is yours for the asking. Some families find those weeks are precisely what they came for. I am one of them. Others discover otherwise, usually after the house in Surrey has been sold.
My advice, before anything else, is to take a term. Three months, one winter, the children enrolled and the parents working from the house, and then decide. If it is right, you will know by the February holidays. If it is not, you will have had a fine winter and lost nothing more than a deposit.
We let homes by the school term for exactly this reason. Of everything we do, it may be the most useful.
What a term with us is
A school term runs three months, aligned to the International School's calendar. The house comes furnished and ready, and it is run by the same people who run our weekly stays: the pre-arrival assistant who resolves the practical questions before you land, the local concierge who knows which ski school takes four-year-olds and which dentist to call, and the housekeepers who have cared for that house for years. The shovelling, incidentally, is among the things we can take care of. You may still choose to do it once yourself.
What changes is the measure of service. A week in February is usually taken at Silver or Gold, with a chef, a host team and a driver. A term is lived rather than visited, with school mornings and working weeks, so we set the service to the rhythm of a household rather than a holiday. Some families ask for housekeeping once a week and nothing more. Others want the house fully run, so that both parents can work and the evenings belong to them. The house is yours in either case; the team arranges itself around how you live in it.
Two homes are available for the January term this winter, and they answer different questions.
Chalet La Vigne is the one I would choose with young children. Six adults and four children, the children in a bunk room with four full beds and a bathroom of its own, and an indoor pool and hammam on the lower level, which matters more than one expects when night falls at five. The chalet stands on its own hillside above Patier, so it is quiet, and you will want a car.
Appartement Coprin is the considered choice. Four bedrooms for eight, a short walk to the Médran lifts, parking for three cars and forest behind the building. A home that runs simply, with us a telephone call away whenever you would rather it ran itself.
La Vigne is available from 3 January to 28 March 2027, from CHF 300,000 for the term; Coprin from 10 January to 28 March, from CHF 146,000. For those who already know they want longer, Chalet Peter Pan and Chalet La Datcha are let for the whole winter season, and La Datcha and Apartment Nadal for the year; all are on the seasonal and yearly page. Rates are indicative and set for each booking, so the conversation is worth having early.
The two things people misjudge
The first is where the parents will work. A chalet with a cinema room or a separate mazot offers a door to close; a bunk room at four in the afternoon does not. Tell us how you work and we will tell you which house suits, and when you want a change of walls there are good places to work in the village, 67 Pall Mall among them, and we will make the introduction. While we are at it, ask for the walking time from the front door to the school rather than the distance, and tell us where you will be driving from. We will advise on what kind of car gets where in January, and what belongs in the boot.
The second is the weekends. I misjudged this myself. My first winter here as a father I treated every weekend as a holiday, because that is what Verbier had been to me for a decade, and by the third week the whole family was tired. A term holds twelve weekends, and the ones worth remembering have a shape: ski school on Saturday morning, lunch where you have become known, an early night, and one or two weekends left open for the snow to decide. That shape is something we help you find. In the first week a concierge opens the village to you; by the eighth, they know your family well enough to protect your Saturdays.
What I would do
If a friend asked, and friends have, I would say this.
Take Coprin for the January term if the question is whether village life suits you. It is close to everything, light to run and considerably less than the chalet, and it lets you live the winter at street level, with the lifts and the shops a few minutes on foot.
Take La Vigne if you already know you love it here and the question is whether the children will. The pool, the bunk room and the quiet will carry a family through the grey weeks, and you will have the kind of winter that is talked about for years.
And if the decision is already made, take the year rather than the term. Chalet La Datcha in the centre of the village, five en-suite bedrooms with a spa of their own and the bills included, or Apartment Nadal at Le Hameau with three indoor parking spaces, both let for twelve months. A year here is a different proposition from a long winter. It gives you May, when the village empties and the meadows return, and a summer in the mountains, which in my experience is the season that turns visitors into residents.
Whichever way, rent before you buy the chalet: a term if you are still deciding, a year if you are not. Arrive in January, stay to the end of March, and decide in April with the lifts still turning and the answer in front of you. When the answer is yes, we work alongside Knight Frank and Naef Prestige, so that you are passed into the right hands to find something that fits the family you have become. And whatever the answer, we will be here for the next conversation, knowing how your family likes to live, which is the part of this work I value most.
Tell us the school dates and the ages of the children, and we will say which home fits: enquire here.