Botanique Hotel & Spa

Rio de Janeiro might be a city you’d go on holiday to, but São Paulo — huge, hectic, and nowhere near the beach — is the kind of city you need a vacation from. Just ask the well-heeled Paulistanos fleeing the metropolis on the weekend for calmer, cooler getaways. One of these is the mountain escape around Campos do Jordão, where Botanique Hotel & Spa opened on a sprawling piece of hillside property in 2012.

The towering glass-fronted lodge was a labor of love: it took almost a decade to build. Take a look around and you’ll start to see why. Unlike many of the European-style hotels in the region, Botanique is Brazilian through and through, built by local craftsmen using materials indigenous to the region, from jacaranda to stone to timber to chocolate slate, and furnished with art and décor made by more than a hundred Brazilian designers. It’s a bold move in a country where the term “luxury” is typically associated with imported products. The concept is called “post-luxury,” and while they’ve got a point, you shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking it’s in any way inferior.

Botanique features only six suites, and eleven villas scattered across the hills. They’re as rustic-chic as you’d expect, with soaring beamed ceilings, crisp white linens, leather armchairs, fireplaces, and patios positioned for optimal views over the lush Atlantic rainforest landscape. But much of the hotel’s floor space is considered common area — an invitation to find your favorite bespoke mahogany chair for cracking open a book and sipping locally sourced coffee or artisanal wine, even a tasting menu of regional waters put together by a geologist. The soundtrack playing in the background? Rare vintage Brazilian records, of course.

Elsewhere at Botanique, there’s a spa with a sleek indoor pool, and treatments are inspired by Afro-Brazilian history and culture. Dining in Botanique’s restaurant, constructed on the edge of a cliff, feels a little like being in a treehouse: a treehouse with a cool suspended fireplace, gourmet farm-to-table cuisine, and expansive views of the mountains. If this is a what a thoroughly Brazilian lodge looks like, forget about European imports — we’ll take the post-luxury.

Please note: Botanique Hotel & Spa cannot accommodate children under the age of ten.