An elegant view of Bastide du Castellas’s estate, reflecting the serene luxury ambiance. The Bastide du Castellas website was crafted as a luxury hospitality platform that mirrors the estate’s refined brand and breathtaking location. I led the web design and aesthetic direction, ensuring the site’s look and feel are creative, elegant, and consistent with a high-end French Riviera getaway. From the very first glance, visitors are greeted with spacious layouts, a calming color palette, and immersive imagery that together convey the property’s exclusive charm and natural beauty. Every design choice — from typography to the placement of content — was made to support the brand’s identity as a tranquil, upscale retreat.

In developing this site, I built it on WordPress to combine visual appeal with a robust, easy-to-manage foundation. The design is fully responsive, providing a seamless and intuitive user experience on desktops, tablets, and mobiles alike. High-resolution photo galleries and slideshows showcase the estate’s villas, Mediterranean gardens, and event venues, offering potential guests an immersive tour of the property online. Interactive elements like call-to-action buttons for reservations and a floating “Réservation” link in the menu make it simple for visitors to start the booking process at any point. The design also integrates the estate’s historic logo and a modern layout in harmony – reinforcing brand heritage while engaging users with a modern web aesthetic.

For functionality and content management, I leveraged WordPress’s flexibility to implement all the features the client needed. Key features implemented include:

Image Galleries & Visuals: An extensive gallery of professional photographs and slider banners that highlight the luxury accommodations, event spaces, and scenic surroundings. These visuals not only attract attention but also convey the upscale atmosphere in line with luxury hospitality standards.

Navigation & Pages: A clear, multi-level navigation menu guides visitors through sections for Le Domaine (the estate overview), Hébergements (accommodations), Évènements (private events and seminars), La Marina (on-site marina services), and Activités (activities on the property). This logical structure ensures users can effortlessly find information about staying at the bastide, hosting events, or enjoying amenities.

Reservations & Contact: A dedicated booking information page prompts guests to reserve their stay or event, providing details on how to book and what to expect. In addition, a contact page with a built-in contact form and the estate’s phone/email details allows for easy inquiries. These elements are strategically placed to convert interested visitors into bookings or direct contacts.

Integration & Updates: Social media links (e.g. Facebook) and a newsletter subscription form are included to keep guests connected and engaged beyond the website. Because the site is built on WordPress, the estate’s team can easily update text and photos, post blog updates about events or news, and maintain the site without needing technical help – a crucial advantage for ongoing content freshness.

SEO optimization was a core part of this project’s success. I implemented on-page SEO best practices from the ground up, including descriptive meta titles and meta descriptions for each page to improve click-through rates from search results. All images (from room photos to wedding shots) have SEO-friendly alt text and are compressed for fast loading, balancing visual quality with performance. The site’s code and theme are optimized for speed and mobile-friendliness, which boosts its search ranking and provides a smooth experience for mobile users. I also structured the content with proper HTML heading hierarchies and incorporated relevant keywords naturally into the copy – for example, highlighting terms like luxury estate in Agay, wedding venue in Var, and Domaine du Castellas itself. Using a WordPress SEO plugin, I generated an XML sitemap and ensured proper indexing by search engines, and added Open Graph meta tags so that the site’s pages preview beautifully when shared on social media. These SEO implementations help the Bastide du Castellas website rank well in the competitive luxury travel and hospitality space, ensuring that the elegant design is backed by strong visibility and discoverability.