Homes, hotels & restaurants
Chalets de Claude Nobs
- Type
- Private residence
- Address
- Caux, sur les hauts de Montreux
Not open to visitors
Perched at Caux, above Montreux, Claude Nobs’s chalets (Le Picotin, Le Grillon and L’Éclisse) rank among the most singular places in the history of music. A miniature railway linked the chalets, a detail that said everything about the man. From 1982 onwards, the founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival welcomed his guests there around fondues that became legendary: Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, Prince, Quincy Jones and so many others admired the view over Lake Geneva amid a unique collection of jukeboxes, records and archives. Now maintained by the Claude Nobs Foundation, the chalets are private property and cannot be freely visited. Among the treasures kept there is a black Japanese kimono embroidered with cranes, pines and waves. Claude Nobs had lent his flat in Territet to Freddie Mercury for about a year; when Queen’s manager asked how much was owed, Nobs refused any rent: “I was just happy and honoured to have had Freddie for so long”. A few days later the singer came up to the chalet with a big bag: two antique silk kimonos, one for Nobs, one for Thierry Amsallem. The second, a white one, is on display at the Montreux Jazz Café (Claude Nobs, “Live from Montreux”, 2007).
Claude Nobs’s retreat
The night “Under Pressure” was born
One evening Claude Nobs invited Queen and David Bowie to his home for a barbecue. At midnight he suggested the musicians go down to the studio. They went, and came back two hours later: “Under Pressure” was born.
The chalets, up above Montreux, were full of objects: Wurlitzer jukeboxes, sound equipment, the black kimono Freddie Mercury gave to Claude Nobs and Thierry Amsallem, the studio piano Freddie played, gifts from him and from David Bowie, a print signed by Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, a larger-than-life bust of Aretha Franklin, instruments belonging to Carlos Santana, a trumpet belonging to Quincy Jones.
Over the years, the chalets welcomed more than ten thousand artists. Each left a mark: David Bowie often turned up with plastic gifts, Freddie Mercury with crystal glasses. “In his youth he was poor and dreamed of drinking champagne from crystal glasses” recalls Thierry Amsallem (« L’invité », TV5MONDE).
The chalets are not open to visitors: they can only be rented for private events. They can, however, be seen from the Coucou hotel-restaurant, just above them.
In July 2016 the chalet welcomed an unexpected visit: while at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the American rapper Ty Dolla $ign filmed a sequence of his video “$” there and posed with Claude Nobs’s two dogs.
Related artists :Claude NobsPierre KellerRag'n'Bone ManFreddie MercuryDavid BowieQueenNina SimonePatrick JuvetRomero Britto