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Emblematic hotel
of La Grande-Motte

History of
Saint-Clair

Originally the Saint-Clair beach side was a commercial complex, “Le Mercure”, built by the Architect Albert Cane (Beaulieu-sur-Mer) between 1969 and 1970. Over the period from 1967 to 1984, Albert Cane built nearly 25 buildings on La Grande-Motte, including the very interesting ensemble Saint-Clair consisting of 3 majestic Pyramidsthat make facing the sea on Point Zéro beach.

You have understood it, the name of the hotel comes from this residence, Le Saint-Clair, and its unique and privileged location on the beach !
The building of the Hôtel Saint-Clair has the particularity of being entirely on one level, on one level on the ground floor, built according to a construction method popularized by the famous French architect Le Corbusier in the 1910s, the Dom-Ino system. Its main architectural characteristic is that it is erected using the so-called Poteau-Slab technique which offers several major advantages:  
  • have a very low building while maintaining a high ceiling
  • totally free the internal surface of the building by rejecting the supports as close as possible to the facade
  • exempt the facade from all structural constraints.

A unique architecture

The Post-Slab

Pushed to its climax, the “post-slab” technique gave its desirable aesthetic to the architecture of the “West Coast” of the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is in this spirit of California in the sixties, and inspired by the model of North American “Motels”, that part of the shopping center was transformed into a hotel in the 1980s.

This change of assignment was made possible thanks to the absence of internal structural constraints, which made it possible to partition the interior surface at leisure and in this case to create 27 rooms of good size.


Taking advantage of a pleasant interior patio that already existed, the Architect in charge of the project opened all the “South” facades wide onto the shaded lawns of the “Promenade des Vents”, thus allowing the hotel to be open to the sea. and the Point Zero dunes.

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The Saint Clair in time

A first major renovation of the hotel was carried out in 2019 by the Montpellier interior designer and designer François Combaud.

Like his predecessors, François drew his inspiration from the 60s and 70s, Palm Spring and the “Case study houses” of the “West Coast” of the United States, to which he added motifs inspired by the surroundings of the beach of Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

A second major intervention was carried out during the winter of 2022-2023 by Stéphane and Alexandra, the current owners.

It consisted of the total renovation of a large part of the bedrooms and bathrooms, the development of the exterior parts of the hotel and the revegetation of the green spaces.

Other projects are still planned which will be implemented very soon…

History is written over time!


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