Villa La Coste

As magical as the typical Provençal country hotel can be, it’s not at all the only hospitality experience the south of France has to offer. Villa La Coste begins with a 17th-century farmhouse surrounded by rambling stone buildings, but it’s the contemporary additions by architects like Frank Gehry, Oscar Niemeyer, and Tadao Ando that set it apart from the ordinary bastide hotel — not to mention its 600 acres of parkland, vineyards, and gardens, and an art collection that rivals some urban museums.

The hotel’s 28 suites are sunny, contemporary, stylish, modernist-inspired and hyper-luxe, and they’re tasteful rather than ostentatious (at least until you get to the bathrooms, which are nothing short of extravagant). They’re not technically freestanding villas, though they feel like they are, and they’re furnished in a residential style, complete with a library of art books and even original works by the artists featured on site — names like Tracey Emin, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Louise Bourgeois.

Nor are the culinary arts overlooked. Villa La Coste features the first European restaurant by Argentine chef Francis Mallmann, and a second fine-dining restaurant for good measure. And it doesn’t end there. There’s a full-service spa, a winery designed by Jean Nouvel, installations by the likes of Richard Serra and Ai Weiwei — as well as views of Mont Ventoux and the Luberon. There’s truly nothing else like it, in Provence or anywhere else.