Eric Arnoux - Président du groupe immobilier PureConcept

Eric Arnoux, président fondateur du groupe immobilier de luxe PureConcept

"Ultra-luxury cannot be imitated" Eric Arnoux, President of PureConcept Luxury Real Estate

Eric Arnoux is a French entrepreneur born in 1966 in Grenoble, France. Building engineer, he is the founder of the international design and production brand PureConcept. 
Father of two twins, he is above all a passionate self-taught man who started his entrepreneurial adventure by creating his first company in 1991. 

He has gradually built a dynamic real estate group in the South-East of France and in the Alps which will quickly meet with great success and be exported across borders.
The unique luxurious design designed by Eric Arnoux leads him to focus only on exceptional projects and achievements that will help create his worldwide notoriety.

Founded by Eric Arnoux, over the last fifteen years, PureConcept has grown into one of the leading design firms in French Alps, South of France, United States of America and Middle East area. The French entrepreneur is unquestionably one of the most influential personalities in the world of luxury design and international Real Estate. The company has successfully completed countless number of projects turnkey solutions projects in collaboration with architects, high skilled technicians to ensure a technical excellency.

Luxe & Passions: Visionary, creative, ultra talented, you have been a pioneer in the ultra luxury real estate in the prestigious ski resorts in France as Megève and Courchevel in the 2000’s. You do not follow trends, you create them. You started by building more than 65 stunning chalets. Then PureConcept expanded itself later in key cities as Paris, Saint-Tropez, Cannes, Gstaad, Los Angeles, Miami or Dubai. You have invented a concept so unique, created a new approach of the conception and the design. How do you explain this success?

Eric Arnoux: Each project is for me like first a personal creative intuition. I’m a bulimic of creation. At the beginning of this adventure it is by pure unconsciousness of things, I love luxury, beautiful things and above all harmonies. The first creations made in the years 1995 to 2000, which were already very luxurious for the time, came from my imagination, without knowing whether the clientele would be there. Luckily it worked well, the success was beyond my expectations, then it was only crescendo, to reach for ten years a level which could never be caught up. We were always three or four steps ahead of "the competitors", if we could name them that way, when we finished a property that would later be copied ten times, we were already under construction of three others even more luxurious, more tall, crazier every time. I think that’s the main reason. Since then, no one has really made such achievements. On saying of my real estate design or yachting that it is daring. I especially know that the lines are known to give meaning to the beauty of the project. For me Real estate lacks a lot of meaning today, this is what probably explains the success of my creations.

L&P: You said, "PureConcept is an art of living with a masterful attention to detail". Could you give us some examples? Where do you find your inspiration?

Eric Arnoux : My inspiration, I don't really know where I find it, but I draw most of my ideas from the harmony of what I see, the harmony of shapes, colors, materials, symmetries. I am very sensitive to the harmony of things. I draw it from my strength of protest against the inharmonious and the banality which is unbearable. My immense curiosity of mind, my long journeys, my meetings, my complete world tour fueling my intuitions in the construction of my real estate designs. Design is my freedom. I never liked the celebrity that my clients gave me. However, I have always passionately loved building. I am convinced that a man is what he built. What inspires me is also the human warmth in which my clients will bathe. What I say in ultra-luxury design I could also tell in a text or in a picture. Unfortunately, I don't have these talents. I have lived with real estate since my childhood. Ultra-luxury design and my method of expression. I constantly take notes, I seal in my memory images and harmonies that I reuse. Each ultra-luxury real estate design is for me a work in its own right and an element of the puzzle of my life. Many people improvise themselves "interior designers", but most of the time they are only developers, "assemblers" of furniture bought with always the same suppliers, to end up each time with the same atmospheres. Our concept is totally different, the design begins from the conception of volumes, spaces, the sense that we want to give to the good that we draw. Our design begins from the shell, to end with the choice of small spoons, harmony is a whole. The real design is in the walls, floors, ceilings, openings, not in the choice of fabric for sofas and curtains. For each achievement, I savor the joy of seeing my clients find themselves in these spaces and volumes dedicated to them.

L'entrepreneur franco-suisse Eric Arnoux à la tête du groupe immobilier de luxe PureConcept

L&P: You have conceptualized the idea of the "desert chalet", we could say one of your trademarks! What does it mean?

Eric Arnoux : The expression is not mine, but one of my loyal customers from the Middle East, he visited several chalets that I totally designed, he stayed there, and when designing one of his villas in a place far from the Emirates, he said to me: "I want a chalet in the desert", to evoke the same degree of finish, attention to detail, luxury and harmony. It is true that my notoriety was first built around the realization of extra luxury chalets in the Alps, more than other types of residences, "desert chalet" it became a definition to say, the PureConcept product in the Middle East.

L&P: Your passion for design and the design of exceptional spaces led you in addition to real estate to conceive the designs of yachts and private jets for the most demanding customers. Where does this inspiration comes from and how do you manage to create such a level of luxury for each project?

Eric Arnoux : For me yachting is the pinnacle of luxury and quality. Being able to design spaces dedicated to this environment is like a consecration. Very modestly I like to decorate, in a charming way, the volumes and the spaces of a yacht. I like to offer them harmonies, atmospheres using natural stone, precious woods, the most beautiful noble materials, worked with care in the smallest detail, without any limit to the creation. In yachting "everything is allowed" in terms of design, I like to offer my customers the warmest atmosphere in colors and products. Both yachting and real estate must be an exceptional experience.

An intense emotion. My design of the Yachts often allows a "cocooning" atmosphere, where the splendor, however present, is absolutely not flashy. It is first harmonious and adapted to the energies of my customers. Inspiration comes alone, I have a real passion for it. To create this level of luxury, it came naturally over the years, with hindsight when we called "luxury" in the years 1995 or 2000, today it would not even be the level of finish of garages... the meeting with the yachting community during the construction of a dozen yachts in the early 2000s gave an enormous evolution in the way of thinking, creating, to represent, and above all to realize. The level of luxury that we have achieved in real estate for over 15 years is mainly due to the "Yachting" experience.

L&P: Wealthy people have their own level of expectation. What do they mainly looking for?

Eric Arnoux : They want to be able to make their dreams come true. I allow them. PureConcept is not just ultra-luxury. It is first of all the story of people whose values are closely linked to those of my brand: longevity and uniqueness. Ultra-luxury cannot be imitated. It cannot be duplicated. It doesn't go out of fashion. Luxury is the difference. Ultra-luxury is the freedom to create your dream. It's its value. I admit that I don't really like the term "the rich", that is, we need a certain budget to be able to afford our design and concept but I think that certain atmosphere, can exist with taste and without this representing an inaccessible cost for many people. Our customers are mainly looking for a degree of finish and harmony that they find in very few places, only certain 5* hotels, yachts and private planes, offer this, so why not in their homes or their offices where they spend more time.

We treat each property as if it were a new discovery and a journey for them. Whether it is the main family home, one of the second homes, or a “pied-à-terre”, each property must have its soul and its function, while maintaining the usual luxurious level of finish.

L&P: What is your craziest project?

Eric Arnoux : There have been a few already in the past few years and thank you for the chance that I have been allowed to do them. The craziest project I think is happening right now, I have been working with my teams for two years trying to combine extra-luxury with the environment. We are finishing the creation, the complete aesthetic and technical design of a new "brand" of hotels & resort and place of "luxury retreat and meditation", in total (or almost total) autonomy in natural resources. The use of 100% recyclable materials, the recycling and treatment of water, the production of energy, the creation and manufacture of the food used for customers are the specifications that I set myself. Always with a level of luxury to this day never equaled in terms of "co-responsible" hotels. I have already built very luxurious hotels like the Ultima hotel in Gstaad, but this time the desired level will be much more elitist. The first "Retreat and Resort Hideaway" will see the light of day in 2021, in the most unusual places for this type of hotel, it will be a revolution in the industry. No large hospitality group worthy of the name can do without its extra-luxury 100% Green brand.

L&P: You are currently working on different ultra luxury projects and concepts. Could you tell us about one of them?

Eric Arnoux : We have other “more classic” projects than the one in hospitallity that I have just described, mainly the design of two yachts of 45 and 65 meters for a renowned Italian shipyard, several villas of very great luxury and very large surfaces, some apartments to renovate. The 2020s and 2021s will be filled with beautiful architectural surprises, the new PureConcept vintage is in the making to give the best of itself very soon.

L&P: What is your vision of luxury in the years to come?

Eric Arnoux : I don’t think there’s going to be a real makeover, luxury is taking up more and more space in a lot of activities and business development in this sector has never looked so good. LVMH or Kering and many others are examples. The luxury market has only been progressing for a long time without ever having experienced a decline and knowing only what to create, design and produce this type of goods, I see the future in a very serene way for this sector, and for PureConcept.