Service · the rarest
By contract · annual · or seasonal
« Not a motorcar one reserves, but a presence one keeps. »
I
The in-residence service is the rarest of the House's engagements. Where the by-the-hour service is counted in hours or in weeks, residence is counted in seasons and in years.
To take a chauffeur in residence is to entrust the House no longer with a journey, nor even with a stay, but with a part of one's life on the Riviera. A chauffeur is attached to the residence; a motorcar is reserved for him; and from that continuity comes what nothing else can give — the silent knowledge of one's habits.
The House reserves this service for a small circle. It enters into it only after a long conversation, for an in-residence service is not a prestation one subscribes to: it is a trust one grants.
II
The four conditions of attachment
The same man, season after season, who knows the faces and the customs
Attached to the residence
Held apart from any other service, ready at any hour
Full exclusivity
The roads, the hours, the silences, the detours learned without being told
Acquired discretion
Present without being summoned, absent without having to vanish
Measured presence
III
The in-residence service is for families settled year-round on the French Riviera, for the owners of villas at Cap-Ferrat, on the Cap d'Antibes or in the hinterland, for the residents of the Principality, and for the family offices that watch over a household's mobility. It is also for those who come only for the season, yet mean to find there, each summer, the same crew and the same regard.
IV
How the House attaches itself to a residence
The attachment is sealed by contract — annual for residents, seasonal for villégiatures. A single chauffeur is assigned for the whole duration; a second may be provided in relief, so that the residence is never without its motorcar.
The first days serve to learn. The roads, the hours, the children's habits, the recurring appointments, the preferences one expresses only once. Past that time, the service becomes invisible: the chauffeur anticipates, the motorcar is there, nothing has had to be asked again.
Confidentiality is the tacit condition of residence. The House knows the discreet entrances, the routes one prefers to keep silent, the presences one does not comment upon. What it learns of a residence never leaves it.
V
A few residences served by the House
Cap-Ferrat · Annual contract · Family
A family settled on the peninsula. A chauffeur attached to the residence, a motorcar reserved in the villa's garage. School in the morning, luncheons, dinners, the arrival of guests at the airport — the House learns a life and quietly enters it.
Saint-Tropez · Seasonal contract · June to September
For the four months of the villégiature, a single crew. The motorcar follows the rhythm of the beaches, the dinners at the port, the evenings in the villas of the hills. When the season ends, the attachment is undone — ready to be reborn the following summer.
Monaco · Annual contract · Confidentiality
For a family managed through a family office, an in-residence service set to the strictest confidentiality. The chauffeur knows the sensitive routes, the discreet palace entrances, the long waits borne without ever weighing.
Megève · French Riviera · Shared presence
For those who divide the year between mountain and sea, a service that follows the residence rather than the place. The same care, the same spirit of the motorcar, from a ski season to a season by the water.
VI
The in-residence service is set on a fixed basis — annual or seasonal — and not by the journey. It comprises the attached chauffeur, the reserved motorcar, and the coordination of a second crew when the residence requires it. Conditions are settled case by case, following a preliminary conversation.
The House takes only a limited number of residences at a time. It is the only way to keep the promise that gives the service its worth: that a chauffeur is never shared, and that a motorcar belongs, for the term of the contract, to a single house alone.
One does not reserve a residence; one becomes attached to it.
IX
For a lasting attachment, by the year or by the season, the House receives its requests after a long preliminary conversation.
The conditions of the House are shared on request, after an interview.
Make an in-residence service request