Les Avants

Les Avants is a winter resort in the Vaud Alps. The village was developed as a ski resort in the 19th century by the Dufour family. They constructed the ski slopes and built a hotel, Grand Hotel des Avants, to accommodate visitors. In 1872, an Anglican chapel was built in the grounds of the hotel for the benefit of English visitors.{{cite web|url=https://stpeters.ch/history-of-english-churches-in-switzerland-les-avants/|title=The English Chapel, Les Avants|publisher=St Peter's, Château d'Oex|access-date=8 August 2022}} The village hosted the first Ice Hockey European Championship, in 1910 and gives its name to the Chemin de fer Les Avants – Sonloup. Opened in 1901 as the first stage of the Montreux–Lenk im Simmental line, it connects Montreux to Les Avants and Sonloup, {{convert|0.5|km|abbr=on}} to the northwest. The hotel closed after the Second World War and has since served as a school, currently Le Châtelard international boarding school. Ernest Hemingway stayed at the resort in the 1920s, and recalls the village in his memoir, A Moveable Feast.{{cite web|url=https://ecolechatelard.ch/a-place-of-history/|title=A place of history|publisher=Ecole Châtelard|access-date=8 August 2022}}

The village was home to the opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland and her husband, the conductor Richard Bonynge, who lived at the Chalet Monet.{{cite web|url=https://www.vogue.com.au/vogue-living/design/inside-joan-sutherlands-incredible-swiss-mansion-chalet-monet/image-gallery/27f336664cf6a75df8ea3943ec765f18|title=Inside Dame Joan Sutherland’s incredible Swiss mansion Chalet Monet|first=Yeong|last=Sassall|publisher=Vogue|date=4 September 2020|access-date=7 August 2022}} Sutherland’s home was found for her by Noël Coward, a long-time friend and fellow resident of Les Avants.{{cite web|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1980/01/09/archives/cole-lesley-70-aide-of-noel-coward-did-biography-of-writer-stayed.html|first=C. Gerald|last=Fraser|title=Cole Lesley obituary|publisher=New York Times|date=9 January 1980|access-date=7 August 2022}} Coward had bought his own home, further down the mountain from Chalet Monet, in August 1959. Having toyed with the idea of calling the house Shilly Chalet, Coward adopted the local rendition of his own name, Chalet Covar.{{sfn|Coward|2007|p=644}} After Coward’s death at Firefly, their other home in Jamaica, in 1973, his partner Graham Payn lived at the chalet until his own death in 2005.{{cite web|url=https://www.gylesbrandreth.net/blog/2018/4/26/noel-coward-friends|title=Noel Coward and friends|first=Gyles|last=Brandreth|publisher=Gylesbrandreth.net|date=26 April 2018|access-date=8 August 2022}}{{cite web|url= https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/something-mad-about-the-boy-1155739.html |first=Philip|last=Hoare|title=Something mad about the boy|publisher=The Independent|date=11 April 1998|access-date=8 August 2022}}

{{ref list}}

• {{Cite book

|first=Noël|last=Coward

|author-link= Noël Coward

|editor=Barry Day

|title=The Letters of Noël Coward

|location=London

|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing

|isbn=978-1-408-14768-9

|year=2007

}}

{{coord|46|27|13|N|6|56|39|E|region:CH_type:city|display=title}}

{{authority control}}

Category:Villages in Switzerland

Category:Villages in the canton of Vaud