At first glance, the red gingham curtains, sedate cream lamp shades and sofas in the living room, the toile de Jouy wallpaper and teddy bears in the bedrooms — not to mention the homely wooden kitchen — don’t appear to be the hallmarks of the original It girl. Yet look a little closer, at the carved beam bearing the mantra “Music, Laughter, Friends, Couture”, for example, and you might come to suspect that this is the home of a serious fashionista after all.

Study the white chimney breast, with the grandly painted monogram “T P-T 2007”, and there’s no doubt. Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s home in the exclusive Swiss resort of Klosters may be traditional, but it has all the glamour — albeit understated — we have come to expect of the woman now recognised merely by her initials.

Two years ago, Palmer-Tomkinson, 37 — who in the mid-1990s gained the repu-tation of being London’s ultimate party girl — decided to buy a getaway in Klosters, near Davos, in the east of the country, where she has skied every year with her family from the age of four. Although her parents, Patty and Charles — friends of the Prince of Wales and regulars in his skiing party — own a chalet there themselves, Palmer-Tomkinson wanted her own base, for private escapes and entertaining.

She settled on a four-bedroom, two-storey chalet penthouse with a huge balcony and mountain views, which she bought off-plan for about £1.5m, and charged her mother and a friend, the interior designer Susanne von Meiss, with creating what she calls her “winter palace”. The brief they were given by the model, television presenter, musician and author was to “make it just like there was a blizzard outside, so inside you can be all snug and lovely — no holds barred”. It took more than a year to complete, and she has fallen in love with the result — so much so, she is planning on spending entire seasons here.

“It may seem olde-worlde,” Palmer-Tomkinson says of the beamed ceilings, arched doorways, log fires, canopied beds and old wooden skis and poles hanging from the rafters, “but it does have all mod cons. I love providing for my friends, as I just want to spoil them. There are so many people coming in and out of that place, it’s like letters in a letterbox.”

The penthouse’s first floor — there are only four other flats in the chalet — has been dedicated to her guests. (Her most recent invite list includes the actor Rupert Everett and close friend Duncan James, formerly of the boyband Blue). As you enter, there are racks of skiwear and boots guests can help themselves to, along with a steam room and two bedrooms — one red, one blue — decked out by the interior designer Andrew Martin, with beautifully crafted wooden furniture, folk art and piles of cushions.

“It’s so different to my home in London, which is very contemporary, with its high ceilings, big, open spaces and retractable walls,” Palmer-Tomkinson says. She bought the two-bedroom, three-storey property in South Kensington in 2004, for just over £2m. “The chalet is very chic,” she insists. “I wanted it to be like a hotel: all the rooms come with things such as hairdryers, DVD players and phone chargers. And you can hear music everywhere.”

For the former Sunday Times Style It girl — who underwent a high-profile nose job after giving up her well-documented £400-a-day cocaine habit in 1999 — playing and making music have always been a lifeline. As a concert-standard pianist who practises for 90 minutes a day, she duly installed a piano in the penthouse. “I bought an old honky-tonk for nothing, but it ended up costing thousands to restore,” she laughs, with her trademark throaty chuckle. Does the après-ski involve singing round the old joanna with hot chocolate, then? “Well, more like schnapps.”

Reed-thin Palmer-Tomkinson — who won Comic Relief Does Fame Academy in 2007 with her version of These Boots Are Made for Walking, wearing a slinky black dress split up the thigh — is working on a piano album, and has been using the chalet to write. “Klosters is very inspiring, even in the summer,” she says.

Despite her naughty sense of humour and reputation as a sexy socialite — she first came to the public’s attention in the mid-1990s, when she was spotted kissing Prince Charles on the Klosters slopes — there is a contemplative side to T P-T. She loves to recharge her batteries at her family’s Hampshire estate, where she grew up with her older sister, the writer Santa Montefiore, and, now her “clubbing days are over”, she says she likes to be tucked up in bed by 11.30pm, watching DVDs. So she has made sure her Swiss pad has private space. In fact, when the fondue parties she throws have ended, she can retire to the second floor, with its walk-in wardrobe (naturally), cinema room and huge terrace, which she keeps practically to herself.

Her own bedroom is a sanctuary in blue and white, dedicated to her inner girliness. The classic blue-and-white toile de Jouy pattern covers everything: walls, bed canopy, bedspread, cushions and curtains. Adding to the room’s air of little-girl innocence is a white Dior teddy bear, sitting on the bed, part of a family of 15. “He is so sweet,” she croons. “In the mornings, the maid comes in and faces him towards the mountains; at night-time, he faces the other way. I’m sure she thinks I’m completely cuckoo. Before I went to rehab, I was messy, but now I have to have everything immaculate. And the bears are very important to me.”

Of course, for Palmer-Tomkinson, Klosters is not only a place to hide away — it’s the place where she indulges her passion for winter sports. She comes from a family of skiers — her father is a former Olympian who coached Prince Charles — and the thrill, and dangers, of the sport are in her blood. “I’ve always skied here, so Klosters is a huge part of my life. It’s where my grandfather was killed, and where my mother was caught in an avalanche.”

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