None of these places feel like hotels. Not in the traditional sense. There aren’t uniform hallways filled with rows of doors, with nothing to distinguish them beyond a number. The furniture isn’t interchangeable from one bedside to the next, placed cautiously within rooms that stretch toward inoffensive neutrality.
These hotels have personality. The interior design feels hand-crafted and uniquely curated, as if you wandered into the holiday home of an Ibizan billionaire with impeccable taste. Take your time, stroll around, try on the slippers and robe.
Finca Serena Mallorca
Mallorca, Spain
Hidden away on a hundred acres of olive groves, cypress stands, lavender fields, and vineyards, Finca Serena combines traditional architecture with contemporary design. Rooms feature beamed ceilings and arched doorways, and whitewashed walls provide a simple backdrop for a mix of modern and antique-style furnishings and a color palette that’s made up of soothing grays and unfinished wood.
Menorca Experimental
Menorca, Spain
At Experimental Menorca, the rooms are designed by Dorothée Meilichzon, whose work is no less at home under the timbered ceilings of these farmhouse buildings than it is in the more urban Experimental hotels in London, Paris, and Venice. The result is both true to the 19th-century finca and indelibly stamped with a contemporary personality.
Cristine Bedfor
Menorca, Spain
Le Designer Lorenzo Castillo has filled Cristine Bedfor’s spaces with thoughtfully selected antiques and objets, in pursuit of the kind of character possessed by the best small hotels, and inspired by a fictional character dreamt up by hotelier Cristina Lonzano: a local’s vision of a British traveler’s idea of a perfectly hospitable Menorcan residence.
Es Racó d’Art
Mallorca, Spain
Many an old farmhouse in the Balearic islands has been transformed into a luxe and exceedingly private escape. Even in this context, though, Es Racó d’Artà is something special: in the size of the estate, which comprises not just a farmhouse but nearly two dozen outlying casas and casitas, as well as in the sheer excellence of its design, by the well-known local architect Toni Esteva.
La Torre del Canónigo
Ibiza, Spain
A fourteenth-century tower in Ibiza’s historic hilltop old town is home to Torre del Canónigo, a stunning, stylish boutique hotel. Rooms and suites are a dream, and a spacious dream at that, classic in aspect yet contemporary in comfort. And the fact that towers are literally built to provide astonishing views, makes the Canónigo experience a spectacularly panoramic one. Not for nothing does this place draw an A-list clientele.
Hotel Can Cera
Mallorca, Spain
Arriving at Can Cera, passing under its old stone archway and into its leafy central courtyard, you enter a particularly inviting oasis within the already elegant Mediterranean enclave of Palma de Mallorca’s old walled city. A little farther on, up a marble stairway, waits a series of comfy salons, all full of cushiony nooks that invite a respite before continuing to one of the twelve guest rooms.
Can Bordoy Grand House & Garden
Mallorca, Spain
Can Bordoy is made from a couple of 12th-century heritage buildings, and the ancient architecture lends its spaces plenty of historical character. But what it all adds up to is a high-end luxury boutique hotel that’s as contemporary as can be. Part of it is the visual style, which mixes classic antiques with ultra-modern design pieces. And part of it is the comforts, which are subtly high-tech and totally up to date.
Santa Ponsa Fontenille Menorca
Menorca, Spain
Santa Ponsa’s 21 rooms and suites span several buildings across this 250-acre estate, from the main finca-style farmhouse, an 18th-century aristocratic residence, to the barn and various outbuildings, whose architecture is a vibrant mix of Spanish and Moorish influences. Every one is a bit different, but they’re all handsomely styled in focused, contemporary colors, and outfitted with rattan furniture and upscale boutique-hotel comforts.
Torre Vella - Fontenille Menorca
Menorca, Spain
Torre Vella offers a slightly more bohemian vision than its sister hotel, Santa Ponsa. But the difference is a matter of character, not quality — it’s got a personality all its own, but is no less comfortable, or less seductive. Rooms and suites occupy the main building as well as outbuildings, and while they differ in layout, all are stunningly decorated in a minimalist style with plenty of rustic, organic warmth.
Ca Na Xica
Ibiza, Spain
Ca Na Xica recreates the look of a traditional finca, or farmhouse. You wouldn’t guess it when you’re pulling into the place, but the building only dates from 2006. For all its contemporary comforts, Ca Na Xica radiates old-world elegance, Spanish island-style. Each of the twenty suites is individually decorated — think warm tile, cheerful yellow walls, crisp white linens, hardwood French doors leading to private terraces.
Sant Francesc Hotel Singular
Mallorca, Spain
At some point Palma de Mallorca’s best hotels came to rival those in Barcelona and Madrid, two cities that have been in the top league for luxury and boutique hotels from the start. That’s thanks in large part not to the big chains but to one-off independent hotels like Sant Francesc Hotel Singular, a thorough refurbishment of a 19th-century palace that is, in its current incarnation, very much the equal of the long-established names in high-end hospitality.
Purohotel Palma
Mallorca - Palma de Mallorca
Maybe you’re in Palma for the nightlife, and want easy downtown access; or perhaps you’re a Nordic design junkie, and can’t sleep without a bit of sleek minimalism; either way, this is the hotel for you. Some combination of the two must have served as inspiration for owner Mats Wahlström; how else to explain the delightful blend of modern international Zen and wide-ranging ethnic influences within this 14th-century Gothic palace?
Can Alberti 1740 Hotel Boutique
Menorca, Spain
Even a hotel in the old city center of Mahón, Menorca’s capital, offers more rest and relaxation than stimulating urbanity — a situation that suits Can Alberti 1740 just fine. It’s named for the family that established it as its home and for the year of its foundation, and in its present incarnation as a luxury boutique hotel it trades heavily on its residential atmosphere and its quasi-aristocratic elegance.
Sa Creu Nova Petit Palais Art & Spa
Mallorca, Spain
Though crafted from a historical structure, Sa Creu Nova Petit Palais Art & Spa is an entirely modern boutique-hotel experience. Rustic on the outside, it’s as plush as can be on the inside. The occasional rough-hewn stone wall only adds atmosphere to the clean-lined bedrooms, and the simplicity of spaces draws the eye to the artworks — there’s an impressive contemporary collection distrubuted throughout the hotel’s rooms and common spaces.
Six Senses Ibiza
Ibiza, Spain
Six Senses Ibiza is set at the end of a peninsula in the far north of the island, a setting which maximizes its private-island atmosphere, and not only is it as luxurious as you’d rightly expect from Six Senses, but it’s extraordinarily green as well, the first BREEAM-certified resort in the region — meaning not only that its construction and operation are low-impact, but that it works with local agencies to constantly improve its environment and its surrounding communities.
