About Us

Our Story

As a small boy, born to French hoteliers in the Swiss town of Grindelwald, Maxime Friess watched the mighty glacier above his home retreat each year with mounting despair. The visceral connection he made with the raw Alpine landscapes of his childhood nurtured Maxime’s dream to evolve luxury travel to become more sustainable, ethical, and accountable. 

Meanwhile, amidst the terracotta houses of France’s vibrant Ville Rose, Toulouse, the rich Occitan cuisine nourished a young Laurent Lacourt’s fascination with native culinary heritage and produce, inspiring him to train as a chef and, in turn, nourish others.   

Intuitive SERVICE. Intuitive TECHNOLOGY.

When Maxime and Laurent launched Emerald Stay in 2018, after several years spent training and working in luxury hotel management, hospitality start-ups and international finance, it bridged the gap between impactful travel and optimal property management. A PropTech scale-up that’s disrupting an old-school industry, Emerald Stay blends exclusive private homes and world-class hotel services with trailblazing digital technology and global finance expertise.

Pioneering backstage digital tech ensures seamless, intuitive access for Emerald Stay guests and owners alike. Our technology is there when you want it – remote and smartphone-enabled access to our properties, digital concierges, 24/7 bookings with real-time availability and pricing – but so are our people. Let yourself into one of our homes and you might discover a hand-written welcome note on a hamper full of local delicacies, a wood fire flickering in the hearth or fresh wildflowers by your bedside. And you’ll always find a friendly local on hand to restock the firewood, deliver fresh spa towels or explain where to find the butteriest croissants in town.  

The greatest INDULGENCE of all is the luxury of SPACE

A vintner becomes intimately acquainted with his terroir, considering the characteristics of the soil, climate, aspect, and winds that imbue his wines with their unique fingerprint. In the same way, we are intimately connected to the diverse terroirs encompassed within our portfolio – the raw natural environments, distinctive properties, cultural quirks, and local communities. So, when we entrust you with the keys to some of the world’s finest private homes, they come with a conscious connection to the local terroir. 

Arranging an afternoon making cheese in an Alpine dairy in Verbier comes as naturally to us as securing the resort’s top ski guide or best table (and sledge) at Chez Dany. We can host a flamenco workshop in your Ibizan villa, help you create a personalised blend of local Hierbas Ibicencas herbal liquor, or simply serve it to you on ice by the pool. Stay with us and you call (and drink) the shots. 

meet the FAMILY

Since launching Emerald Stay in our native France, we have consciously expanded our portfolio to some of our favourite places on earth: the Swiss Alps, Pyrenees, Costa Brava, Mallorca, Ibiza, and Marrakech. We are proud to number some 100 staff of 25 nationalities in our team, based in our HQs in Geneva and Barcelona and on the ground in our sought-after destinations.  

Learn more about our family here.

Travel GREEN, Stay EMERALD

Emerald Stay is driven by a desire to not merely mitigate the impact of travel to the mountain and coastal environments we cherish but to actively protect them. We became Europe’s first B-Corp certified property management company in 2022; work tirelessly to reduce our emissions; and offset incompressible emissions through carbon contributions, supporting Haiti’s Sadhana Forest in this way since 2019.