It was never meant to be a destination. Once little more than a shifting strip of sand at the edge of the Atlantic, the terra became firma only once pines were planted in the 19th century to stabilise the dunes. What followed was not development so much as a kind of unassuming settlement: oyster farmers, resin workers, a scattering of wooden huts and, by the 1920s, villas hidden in the forest.

“Cap Ferret is nothing more than a sandbank, low, almost flat,” says Philippe Starck, French designer and longtime resident. “That’s all. It almost doesn’t exist.”

Call it the bling-free counterpart to Saint-Tropez – one that shouldn’t be mistaken for the glitzy Riviera enclave of Cap Ferrat. Roughly an hour’s drive from Bordeaux, Cap Ferret runs on a different code: no jet skis, no revving Porsches, no beach clubs with champagne spraying and table dancing to a throbbing beat, no yachts clogging the harbour. A narrow finger of land extending around 25 kilometres into the ocean, it separates two distinct worlds – some 10 small villages, most set along the calmer waters on one side, and, on the other side of the dunes, the Atlantic breaking in long, pounding waves.

Villa Colette (Photo: Julius Hirtzberger)

People don’t come to Cap Ferret with an agenda. Families unfurl their towels on the soft sand; children wade into the shallows. Even in July and August, at the height of the season, it’s still possible to climb the dunes and have a corner of the oceanside to yourself. Days unfold between water and land – paddleboarding on the calmer stretches, surfing the Atlantic swells, biking between villages, and drifting through the market in search of fresh produce with a stop at Chez Pascal for its “dunes” – choux pastries filled with cream and dusted with powdered sugar. A younger crowd moves between the stalls and cafes in hand-painted G.Kero linens, designed by local artist Marguerite Bartherotte. By apéritif hour, everyone gathers at the sun-bleached clapboard cabanes à huîtres for oysters pulled from the basin, crisp white bordeaux and conversations that stretch for hours as the light fades.

Up until now, there were no five-star hotels in sight. Which is why Philippe Starck – whose local projects include La Co(o)rniche and Ha(a)ïtza, a pair of hotels across the bay – and his friend, restaurateur and hotelier Laurent Taïeb, created Villa Colette, set back from the Boulevard de la Plage. The superb 28-room property with a red-and-white neo-Arcachon-style façade was conceived as a holiday home with a fictional backstory: Starck’s custom furnishings, soft pastels and mirrors everywhere, steeped in what the designer calls “happy nostalgia”. Life gathers around the veranda and dining room, where a mix of local and Asian-inspired dishes is served.

Villa Colette (Photo: Julius Hirtzberger)

At Le Cœur du Ferret, a private, seven-bedroom villa at La Pointe, part of the Iconic House collection founded by brothers Robin Michel and Thibaud Elzière, the setting is at the tip of the peninsula, between basin and ocean. Built in the spirit of a traditional cabane but reimagined in saturated colours with a distinctly Mexican feel, it mixes pine with a yellow-tiled pool, curated art, an outdoor cinema and a large summer kitchen. A private chef, concierge and house manager take care of the logistics. “There’s a lot of inviting back and forth here – it’s very much a house-to-house culture,” says Michel. “Our role is simply to make it easy to entertain.”

For a broader range, Le Collectionist offers private villas across the peninsula, including Villa Omnia, a six-bedroom house combining red brick and pine with contemporary touches – high ceilings, a library and a long dining room centred on a black-marble and bronze fireplace.

At the entrance to L’Herbe, Cap Ferret’s most picturesque oyster-farming village, sits Hôtel de la Plage. Once a 19th-century dormitory for resin workers, the gabled red-and-cream building was recently reimagined as a cheery, unpretentious 12-key hotel, each room distinct and named after famous figures long associated with Cap Ferret, from Alain Delon to Marion Cotillard (the latter has a house nearby). Downstairs, the restaurant – with its checked tablecloths and fireplaces lit on windy nights – serves dishes like octopus and chorizo, or slow-cooked lamb.

Iconic House (Photo © Mr Tripper)

Before reaching the village, right on the coast, stands one of Cap Ferret’s most surprising sights: the Chapelle de la Villa Algérienne, a striking orange-brick and white-striped Moorish church built in 1885 by entrepreneur Léon Lesca – often referred to as the inventor of Cap Ferret – after his return from Algeria. Just behind it once stood his own extravagant home, described at the time as a “villa for a pacha”, set among palms, mimosa flowers and exotic birds, though the house itself is long gone.

The bicycle ride out to L’Herbe passes through a forest of tall, slender pines until the basin reappears. In the village, a crisscross of narrow lanes, oyster farmers work just offshore, their ramshackle wooden cabanes doubling as food shacks, with decks overlooking the water, strung with seashell ornaments. Here, it’s the inevitable platter of oysters, along with prawns, whelks or Espelette-spiked pâté and bread, a scene that feels barely changed in decades.

Iconic House (Photo © David Loridan)

Chez Hortense, a wooden green-and-white beachfront shack, has been a fixture here since 1930, and is now run by fourth-generation owner Bernadette Lescarret, who draws a loyal mix of regulars and holidaying Parisians. The menu is as straightforward as the setting – grilled fish, garlicky stuffed mussels and fine-cut fries. Around the Conche du Mimbeau, near the tip of the peninsula, the water recedes at low tide, leaving boats resting in the sand and mud, their prows tilted, with lines of oyster stakes rising from the shallows. Lunch might mean an exuberant spread of oyster platters at the highly popular La Cabane d’Hortense or nearby at Le Bouchon du Ferret, a former fish market open year-round with a varied menu including grilled baby squid with spaghetti, duck breast or beef tartare.

After lunch, it’s easy to hire a small pinasse with a skipper and slip out onto the basin. The flat-bottomed boat glides past the cabanes tchanquées – those improbable huts on stilts – and out toward the Île aux Oiseaux. It was here, I later learned, that Laurent de Brunhoff found the inspiration for Babar’s Visit to Bird Island – perhaps not so surprising in a place where Léon Lesca once kept peacocks. Across the water, the glittering Dune du Pilat appears in a long, pale sweep, a golden mirage between sky and sea.

© Icons Travel Guide