Any plans for dinner parties will find themselves amply catered for in the kitchen. There is a spacious, two-tiered central island for prep and plating up, a very deep and very long sink, and an oven which may make you squeak a little when you see it. You could fit six or so pans on the gas rings, and the four oven compartments let you bake, roast, heat your plates and dry your socks all at the same time.

There are enough drawers to have one for each spice, a fridge-freezer wider than the living room TV and tall enough to fit Jeremy Clarkson into standing up straight. And if you fancy some fresh air while you cook, there is a full-scale barbeque on the kitchen front of the wrap-around balcony.

There is a six-person Jacuzzi, sauna for four, a gym/weights room, big garage space for boots and skis and so on – but the highlights of Mont d'Arbois (along with the superb kitchen) are its space, its office, and its fireplace. The space we have mentioned already, but it is worth pointing out again that there is a lot of it. You could hold a wedding reception in the garden. Your kids have a funky playroom well out of sight in the top corner of the chalet.

Then the fireplace, whose soft but towering wood chimney works as both a divider and a centrepiece, and is wonderful when roaring against the winter chill. And the secret gem of the chalet? The downstairs office. Walls lined with books, well-finished cushioned armchairs facing a main desk – it's like a headmaster's study, only with snow outside the window. If you need to work, you want to read, you're doing the Sunday crossword, if you're writing a book, or if your children have been naughty and you want to set them lines, this is the place.

Our concierge pack what's this? comes as standard with a stay in Mont d'Arbois - everything that we offer in Chamonix is equally available staying in Megeve.

Strongly recommended: An in-chalet wine tasting from our local sommelier is the perfect way to enjoy the amazing social space of this chalet, whether it be on the wrap-around balcony as the sun sets, or in the huge space around the roaring fire as the snow falls outside. Ask us for details.

You may wonder, as you step up to the huge wooden front door of Mont d'Arbois, if you haven't at some point swapped your cow for some magic beans and reached the chalet by climbing up a beanstalk. It's big. The doors are big, the rooms are big, the spaces are big, the garden is big. Even the outdoor thermometer is big – about two feet high, entirely sufficient for any giant who might want to pick it up.

Fortunately, however, there is no fee-fi-fo-fumming at Mont d'Arbois, and while the owners clearly have an American taste for space, they also have plenty of space for taste. The chalet was built by Grosset-Janin, a name which, along with being local to Megeve and a mark of extremely high quality, means sturdy, solid wood. Everywhere. Huge beams, wooden staircases, wooden banisters, wooden balconies, an enormous wooden central chimney. This chalet represents a modern and modernised version of chalets as they were when Monsieur Jaques Chalet first thought them up. Staying here, you'll know you're in the Alps.

You'll be happy you're in the Alps, too. Mont d'Arbois has a perfect kitchen, endless living areas, wonderful bedrooms, tremendous kids' space, a massive garden, a great office, and a perfect Alpine mountain view. It warmly ticks every box, and it does so with a very large pen.

Do not hesitate if you like wood, it's everywhere; if you like space: Mont d'Arbois has it, lots of it, both inside and out; if you're bringing the kids: they'll love it, and you could set them loose in the garden and not see them for the next three days.

Think again if you don't like wood: you can't escape it here; if you need to be close to town: Mont d'Arbois isn't; if you're agoraphobic: the interior here will scare you half to death.

If you are used to chalets surrounded by other chalets, all huddled together to protect against the cold and the rising property prices, then you are in for a treat. Mont d'Arbois is about a ten minute drive up the beanstalk from central Megeve, and though you see plenty of chalets on the way, you also see plenty of places where there aren't chalets. Mont d'Arbois, along with being wonderful in its own right, is luxurious in location. It is a huge property, and is flanked by equally huge properties. All of the chalets sit in huge gardens, huge snowfields in winter – this is genuinely rustic, it isn't hard to imagine a summer pastoral: herds of cows, flocks of sheep, horses grazing, the odd shepherd with a stick and a lute.

Mont d'Arbois is in effect a typical chalet, the main difference being that you could fit about three typical chalets inside this one. The ceiling in the main living space reaches up some twenty feet, right to the chalet roof. The first floor is more-or-less open plan, but where you might imagine a kitchen, dining table and a couple of sofas aimed at a massive widescreen TV, what you have is totally different. The huge kitchen is in fact in a separate room, and the open plan space comprises a table around which you could entertain many more guests than you could put up in beds. Then you have a seated area on one side of the central fireplace, the kind of spot you might retire to for your after dinner coffee. And then on the other side of the fireplace, another space big enough to seat everyone in comfort. Then, should you feel short of options, there is a further space out on the balcony that would happily seat seven or eight.

This is not, however, somewhere to watch Batman around the massive TV. There is a TV, but it predates widescreen, and draws very little attention at all in the living area. Mont d'Arbois' living space is intended to be sociable, to talk, to laugh, the enjoy the company of your friends over food and drink and merriment - both inside and out, as huge balconies wrap around almost the entire chalet on two floors. If you own a remote-controlled car or two, this would be the perfect place to bring them and build that huge racing track you've always dreamed of. The chalet may sleep just twelve, but it could entertain fifty or sixty.

The five bedrooms would, ideally, house three couples and an array of children. Each floor has one spacious, beautifully lit and decorated room of the kind you might expect to find in an oversized bed & breakfast back home. These rooms are ensuite, and are the kind of rooms that also have sofas, chairs, and floor space for your morning yoga.

The other two bedrooms are far more child-centric, though the beds are full-size and they could happily sleep adults. One has two beds of odd heights, and less of the grown-up finish of the main rooms. In the fifth room you half expect Bilbo Baggins to pop out of some corner and offer you a cup of tea. Or perhaps it's just a kids' playroom – either way if you're over five feet tall you'll have to duck to get through the doorway, and carry on ducking the length of the room until the far end opens out into two joined bunk beds. It's a fabulous space, but far better tuned to the smaller generation. Those two rooms share a bathroom and toilet off the main landing.