The modern kitchen is equipped for whatever you might want to use it for. Unusually, the hotplates are on the central island, making cooking a very social experience: you can chat with the people on the sofas by the fire while you chop and steam and fry, while your wine cools in the dedicated wine fridge.. Or you can watch the kitchen's own satellite TV. Or leave the cooking to one of our private chefs...

Saphir has everything. You are probably coming in order to ski - Saphir is very close to the Flegere lift, a quick drive or a beautiful fifteen minute walk away. It is close to Le Cabane, one of the valley's finest restaurants. And if you're staying in, on top of the central space and astonishing fireplace you have a very large garden for snowball fights, with a hot tub off in the corner, the river just behind it.

Then inside you have an upstairs desk if you need to turn on the laptop (though be warned, the internet connection is not fast enough for anything much beyond checking your email); downstairs there are heated racks for boots and ski jackets, a dedicated massage room, the gym has space for your morning yoga, running machines and weights to sweat out the end of your day, and a climbing/bouldering wall for a bit of cross-training while the kids are next door in the large home cinema/games room. Or maybe the kids are on the climbing wall (it has a safety mat!) while you're in the home cinema. Whichever way you want to organise it, there's as much as you could want.

Saphir comes with our concierge pack as standard, of course with the option to custom build your holiday with any of our extensive list of extras.

Strongly recommended: if you like to ski tour, or have ever been tempted to get away from the on-piste crowds and see what the fuss is about, Saphir is excellently placed to spend a day with a difference: hire a guide and potter over to the Flegere lift, launching point for one of the Alps' most beautiful and most accesible single-day tours over the Col de Berard.

Architectural style is a very visual demonstration of the relationship between tradition and modernity. With alpine chalets this tension is almost always resolved with a deep bow to the weight of history: huge wooden beams, long sloping roofs, an open fire and a cosy rustic glow are almost prerequisite if a chalet is to be called a chalet. It has been endlessly stamped on our senses by postcards and chocolate boxes, by Heidi, by episodes of Ski Sunday.

Though inevitably Saphir's design gives a nod to the past, it is a nod, not a bow. Saphir looks to the future. It is far more Tate Modern than Natural History, you might say, built by the same brilliant young architect who has just finished The Hideaway further down the valley. Saphir walks the line between modernism and postmodernism, a fusion of the latest technologies, noble materials, forward-looking vision, verve, drive and youthful inspiration, clean lines and sharp angles. It is unique. From the outside it is striking. Inside it is fascinating, surprising, different. You might not like it. But if you do, you'll love it.

Do not hesitate if you want your accommodation to be a talking point: you are unlikely to have seen anything like this before; if you want gym space: along with weights and fitness equipment, Saphir even has its own bouldering wall; if you want a quiet and spacious location: Sahpir is right on the river, has a large garden and no neighbours; if you're a group of adults and children: there's so much to do you could basically leave the kids downstairs for a week and not notice them until you leave; if you're coming in summer and like golf: Chamonix's course is literally the other side of the garden fence.

Think again if you don't like trendy wine bars: Saphir is funky and modern (try Le Planet if you want something more traditional); if you need a decent internet connection: Saphir has internet, but it is as slow as broadband comes; if you want long and large dinner parties: the dining area is adequate but small in comparison to the rest of the space (though two minutes away in Solid Oak the dining space is perfect).

Saphir's style is the more striking for its juxtaposition with its surroundings. On the outskirts of Les Praz, five minutes up the valley from Chamonix town, the chalet is flanked by the river Arve, which flows literally along the back edge of the garden. On its southern edge is the par 3 4th hole of the Chamonix golf course, and if you're planning to ski the Flegere and Brevent you are just a little more than a pitch and putt away - and while you'll want a driver to reach the Grands Montets, when compared to Chamonix town Chalet Saphir is already halfway there.

Saphir is unusual, atypical, and nowhere is this more evident than in the main living area. The centrepiece is a square 360° fireplace, hung from the ceiling and hovering about two feet from the floor. It's not a fireplace to play monopoly around - if you're feeling the draw of Old Kent Road then the snug downstairs home-cinema is the spot. This fireplace wants to be looked at and talked about. And sat around, of course, and here you can sit all the way around it.

Adjoining you have the dining area, not large by comparison but more than sufficient for meals in roomy comfort. Overlooking the main space you have a desk on what amounts to a big balcony, then outside there is a deck large enough to sit your whole party for champagne or mulled wine with the early evening sunshine.

The chalet is built in a 'Y' shape, and the bedrooms on each floor mirror each other, one on either arm of the 'Y'. The rooms are luxurious, stylish, each decorated with its own striking hand-printed wallpaper. There is every modern convenience, from the more obvious satellite TV, the light-occluding shutters, down to small details like the fitted cupboards with automatic lighting, the iPod chargers so it doesn't matter that you forgot yours. The matresses are zip-locking, so each room can be either a twin or a double.

The bathrooms show how much freedom there was in the creativity of the chalet's design: all the shower cubicles are in strikingly sculpted granite, and you'll want to spend as much time looking at them as showering in them. Power showers all round, and an extra shower for the sauna on the ground floor.