The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘The heady scent of rose and jasmine lingers’
From A-list Hollywood to sleepy French village – Maison Ila’s surprise new home is what destination retreats should be, says Jane Knight
Deep in France’s mystical Cathar country lies the sleepy village of Sonnac-sur-L’Hers. By the roadside, a brightly coloured gnome stands sentinel to a population of about 130, including one horse whisperer. The single shop sells apples from the acres of orchards running down to the river in rows of automatic dispensers outside, each containing a different variety of the fruit.
It’s a somewhat unlikely home for Maison Ila, the first retreat of the upmarket skincare brand beloved by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Natalie Portman, who, like many women, can’t get enough of its chemical-free and cruelty-free products, designed to nourish both skin and soul.
Among the shuttered houses looking onto the pretty church square, the 18th-century maison de maître could not be further from the palm trees and Instagram-ready infinity pools usually associated with celebrity wellness hotspots. The minute you step through the door into a world where the air is thick with the scent of candles, you sense this is something altogether different, and more special. Even the walls smell delicious. “I put rose and geranium oil on them,” said Ila founder and aromatherapy expert Denise Leicester, who did up the former B&B during the pandemic after buying it with husband John at the start of 2020.
They had originally been looking for a second home in France, but thought it was the perfect place to set up an outpost of their Cotswoldsbased company where they could develop their ideas. “The house felt very nurturing; I could feel the energy of the area,” said Denise.
Inside, the vibe is boho chic: floors are covered with flagstones, tiles or wood, soft colours predominate with flashes of brightness, and Indian artisan furniture rubs shoulders with pieces from France. Up the original wooden staircase are five lovely bedrooms, a couple with super-king pencil-post beds and standalone bathtubs, and one with its own meditation room.
My own bolthole was even better, in a charming gîte attached to the house with a private garden plus hot tub, kitchen and sitting room as well as its own therapy room in which I could stay and snooze after treatments.
Here, I started an extraordinary fiveday bespoke retreat designed to promote physical, emotional and spiritual health. It ended up surpassing anywhere else I’ve been, including Thailand’s Chiva-Som, thanks to Denise and John’s constant presence. This is no one-size-fits-all place where you are subjected to robotic massage by numbers. An initial consultation results in a daily programme, but treatments are constantly adapted to your needs.
So when Shiatsu specialist David felt I was storing too much tension in my calves and the top of my neck, a warm sand footbath was sent to the gite to help the former through reflexology and a general stress-reducing face therapy was prescribed. White chestnut drops appeared too, sent by Christelle the naturopath, to calm my chattering mind.
It took a couple of days to relax into the gentle rhythm of the place but when I did, I wafted through the days with an increasing sense of contentment.
Morning meditation and yoga were followed by treatments that blurred into each other as the mind stilled and the body responded. There is everything from cold laser therapy, with Denise using acupuncture points to re-energise the body, to a soothing shamanic healing session with John that helped reevaluate my priorities.
Nature plays a big part in the retreat, with year-round options that include wild swimming in nearby lakes or the River Hers in warmer weather. When it’s not warm enough for a dip, the riverbank makes the ideal place for a stretching session under the watchful eye of natural movement specialist Allie, who accompanies guests snowshoeing and cross-country skiing on mountain slopes half an hour away in winter.
Those Pyrenean peaks can also be spied on numerous walks from the village, or you can opt for cycling, going all the way to medieval Mirepoix on an old rail route should you wish. I settled for a couple of hours along the flat, forested route one day, and on another, a trip to pretty Chalabre with its pharmacy selling dried herbs, small market and quiet, shady streets in the other direction. And there are outings to Rennesles-Bains, famous since Roman times for its warm spring waters, and to Rennes-le-Château, where we meditated in the crypt to the sound of harmonious piano music.
Each night, I dined in my pretty garden, an extension of Maison Ila’s larger one, where the heady scent of lilies, rose and jasmine linger around the pool, and where Denise grows herbs for her teas – oregano for the throat, lemon geranium for hormonal balance, vervain for the nervous system.
Herbs feature in her meals too, including a butternut squash soup with sage crisped in the oven that was so good I polished off a whole tureen. Intermittent fasting is encouraged, with meals roughly between 11am and 7pm, and food is vegetarian apart from some excellent wild trout, but I was never hungry.
When Denise heard that I had trouble sleeping, she sent an almond milk drink spiced with ashwagandha, saffron and raw cacao, and prescribed a salt bath followed by moisturising with Ila’s new range of CBD products, which together helped me slumber.
“I always thought it would be lovely to create a space [in which] every touch point is considered, where the food is cooked with care, where the smell is healing, where even the cleaning is done with love,” said Denise. “If you can offer that, it makes the journey for people so much more powerful.”
She has certainly achieved that; nothing has been overlooked. Even the deep-pink bedspread over Egyptian cotton sheets in my enormous bed was picked because the colour is said to be calming on the adrenal glands.
By the time I took a final dip in the wood-fired hot tub beneath a starry sky, I felt completely uplifted. Thankfully, this isn’t the last we have heard of Maison Ila – Denise is already mulling over possible sister properties in Portugal, Morocco and Germany.
For now, though, it is in surprising Sonnac-sur-L’Hers where you will find the ideal antidote to anxious times.
A warm sand footbath was sent to the gite to ease the tension in my calves
Maison Ila (00 339 6749 5354; maisonila.com) offers three-day programmes from £759, five days from £1,270 and seven days from £1,778. Accommodation is priced separately, from £211 for a room to £296 for the gite, per night, full board.
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