Perfect places to stay in Provence
Le Mas de la Tannerie, Gordes
Modern guesthouse in Gordes
Behind the honey-coloured stone walls of splendid five-room guesthouse Le Mas de la Tannerie in Gordes everything is unexpectedly contemporary. Owners Hanne Benoist, a Danish fashion designer, and her husband Gilles have created a Scandi space from scratch, with sober lines and loft-like volumes. Their sunny, rectangular home and adjacent two-storey chambres d'hôtes were designed by the couple's architect daughter, Amandine Dalby.
Rooms are colour-coded - red, green, blue, black or monochrome - and some have private balconies, from which there are views of the surrounding olive grove and distant Alpilles peaks. All have soft linens and cashmere blankets, hand-painted tables and reupholstered flea-market finds. In the smart bathrooms there are stand-alone tubs and polished-concrete sinks. Breakfasts of organic breads, cereals and fruit are served in the big kitchen or on the terrace.
In its former life, the pool house was a tannery, and there are curious-looking bories - 16th-century, beehive-shaped structures in the grounds. For more history, Abbaye Notre-Dame-de-Sénanque monastery is a short drive away.
By Lanie Goodman
Address: Le Mas de la Tannerie, Chemin de Gaumaud, Gordes, France
Telephone: +33 6 2305 6229
Website: lemasdelatannerie.com
Price: Doubles from about £125Hôtel de Tourrel, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
A discreet hôtel particulier in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Walking past the creamy façade of this gorgeously restored 17th-century hôtel particulier - the former home of the illustrious de Tourrel d'Almeran family - you'd never guess there was a super-stylish place to stay behind the unmarked walnut door. It's no accident: German owners Ralph Huesgen and architect Margot Staengle like to keep things low-profile for their smart, international guests.
There are seven bedrooms of varying sizes, each a mix of ornate Renaissance mouldings, furniture from the 1920s and 1930s, hand-sewn cotton sheets, exposed stone walls and 10-foot-high ceilings. Fans of the brilliant Irish designer Eileen Gray will swoon at the sight of sunlit Suite Two, packed with her creations: a green velvet Bibendum chair, a geometric patterned rug and a black-and-white Lota sofa.
After cocktails and tapas by the pool on the rooftop terrace, slip downstairs to the restaurant for refined Provençal dishes such as steamed, rosemary-infused monkfish or slow-cooked beef with polenta. The hotel's adjacent wine shop and tasting room stocks more than 350 bottles, and a few steps away is the Musée des Alpilles, with its odd yet beguiling collection of domestic and agricultural artefacts.
By Lanie Goodman
Address: 5 Rue Carnot, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France
Telephone: +33 4 84 35 07 20
Website: detourrel.com
Price: Doubles from about £195Castel Pierre Lisse, Hyères
An arty mansion in Hyères on the French Riviera
Almost a century ago when the novelist Edith Wharton was in the process of renovating her medieval Château Sainte-Claire in palm-lined Hyères, she decamped to this pretty, 19th-century mansion, which she used as a guest house for her literary pals. The impressive mini-castle was recently restored and opened as Castel Pierre Lisse, an unpretentious but imaginative five-bedroom B&B.
Climb upstairs to the sitting room and step out onto the sprawling terrace to take in views to the islands of Porquerolles and Port-Cros, bathed in a silvery haze. Owner Nicolas Broche, a passionate art and furniture collector, has filled every nook and cranny with a mix of vintage finds and paintings, including works by di Rosa, Boiron and Jasper Johns, and pieces by Eames, Le Corbusier, Robin Day and Castiglioni. Rooms are named after precious stones and painted in a warm yellow ochre, all with tall windows and sea views.
A simple continental breakfast is served downstairs in the drawing room, filled with art books and interior-design magazines, or outside in a sunny corner of the terrace, where in the evening guests inevitably converge for a glass of chilled rosé. Set aside some time to visit modernist Villa Noailles, where patrons Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles once entertained avant-garde artists in lavish style.
By Lanie Goodman
Address: 1 rue du Château, Hyères, France
Telephone: +33 4 94 31 11 18
Website: castel-pierre-lisse.com
Price: Doubles from about £90Commanderie de Peyrassol, Flassans-sur-Issole
Historical estate in Flassans-sur-Issole
Hidden away in the countryside roughly an hour's drive from Nice, this 950-acre estate has been a hotspot on a sacred pilgrimage trail since the 13th century, when the Knights Templar arrived, built a chapel and called it home. Then along came the Knights of Malta, followed by vintners and silkworm breeders, and more recently the Brussels-based entrepreneur and art lover Philippe Austruy and his gallery-owner wife Valérie Bach.
In parts, Commanderie de Peyrassol is still a wild sprawl of forests and olive groves, but its vineyard also produces seriously good wines. They have also created a remarkable contemporary-sculpture park and gallery, along with the 10 new guest rooms. The rustic stone manor has five country-style bedrooms with a variety of antiques, exposed-beam ceilings and terracotta-tiled floors. There's also a lovely five-bedroom hunting lodge out in the woods, although the profusion of bear-skin rugs and mounted mouflon-sheep heads may not appeal to the tender-hearted.
Supper is at the table d'hôte, where chef Guillaume Delaune creates superb dishes such as braised lamb with olives, Provençal beef stew, and nougat ice cream with honey, all washed down with a glass of the domaine's best-selling fruity rosé.
By Lanie Goodman
Address: Commanderie de Peyrassol, Flassans-sur-Issole, France
Telephone: +33 4 94 69 71 02
Website: peyrassol.com
Price: Doubles from about £105
Maison Jalon, Puyricard
A bright boutique hotel in Puyricard
The tiny village of Puyricard lies less than 10km north of cosmopolitan Aix-en-Provence. It still looks much as it did centuries ago, with twisty lanes shaded by umbrella pines and old-timers playing cards in the café, looking for all the world like they've stepped out of a Cézanne painting. It's here that Laetitia and Dimitri Jalon, former owners of an interior-design shop in Marrakech, decided to build their home - a sleek, low-slung, modern rectangle in grey concrete, hidden away at the end of a narrow bumpy road - and then open it up to guests.
Upstairs at Maison Jalon, there are four cheerful bedrooms, each with a capacious south-facing terrace. But the real charm lies in the Wes Anderson film-set vibe and jumble of colours: retro rose, pistachio, tangerine orange, buttercup yellow and turquoise. The couple's choice of vintage wallpaper, naive artworks and hand-woven blankets from Thailand and Mexico, offset by simple mid-century-modern furniture, works beautifully.
There are no mini-bars, but guests are free to forage in the pink Fifties-style fridge at the end of the corridor, or make a cup of tea in the sunny kitchen where hearty breakfasts of chunky country bread slathered in thick lavender honey and Laetitia's homemade organic yogurt are served. Laze by the pool or in a hammock, then venture out to nearby Château La Coste, a vineyard, shop and Tadao Ando-designed art centre with walking trails.
By Lanie Goodman
Address: 2575 Route de Puyricard, Puyricard, France
Telephone: +33 6 21 35 57 60
Website: maisonjalon.com
Price: Doubles from about £75La Bastide de Moustiers, Moustiers-Sainte-Marie
Alain Ducasse's fabulous hotel in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie
The restaurant at this lovely hillside hotel has won awards for its French food, but it's not the old-school, fancy kind. The chefs at Alain Ducasse's Bastide de Moustiers know how to apply bells and whistles (most of them trained with Ducasse at the Louis XV in Monaco) but instead, they hit the local markets and the property's own kitchen garden, and let the seasonal produce shine.
The superstar chef is said to particularly love his 17th-century Provençal inn. When he took it on in 1994, he found fine craftsmen from Moustiers and Salernes to restore it, and a dowser to work out exactly where to put the fountain. The terrace is small and shady; the 11 bedrooms and pair of suites are graceful and cool, decorated in pared-back country style with painted wood panelling.
If the food is indeed superb - brandade, pistou, goat's cheese, just-pulled radishes, edible flowers, all prepared with assured restraint - the service deserves equal billing. The highly professional staff make sure conditions are just right for the kind of fantasy long lunches we all need in our lives.
By Sophie Dening
Address: La Bastide de Moustiers, Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, France
Telephone: +33 4 92 70 47 47
Website: bastide-moustiers.com
Price: Doubles from about £175Les Remparts, Beaumes de Venise
Great value B&B in Beaumes de Venise
Run by Ludivine Rivallin, Les Remparts is built into the fortifications of Beaumes de Venise (which shares its name with a famed Muscat pudding wine) and has five big bedrooms, all different, all deploying cool whites and neutrals next to the original stone walls and antique furniture.
Details are generous and make life comfortable: claw-foot baths, monogrammed linen curtains, bathrobes, home-made jam at breakfast. Secret de Brume has an open bathroom, and the best views of the jagged peaks of the Dentelles de Montmirail and Mont Ventoux, plus private access to the ramparts - as does Legende d'Orient, which combines a traditionally beamed ceiling with furniture imported from Rajasthan and carved-stone sinks.
There's a sun deck and pool just big enough for a splash, and Rivallin can arrange shiatsu and Ayurvedic massages. She also acts as an insider concierge, steering guests towards the better restaurants around the Côtes du Rhône wine villages, or packing them off to the Palais des Papes in Avignon and pretty villages such as Ménerbes and Bonnieux. The peak-season rates may seem steep for a B&B, but the styling and service is on a higher plane, and you get the run of a kitchen, living room and library.
By Sophie Dening
Address: Les Remparts, Beaumes de Venise, Vaucluse, France
Telephone: +33 4 90 62 75 49
Website: lamaisondesremparts.com
Price: Doubles from about £130Domaine des Andéols, Saint-Saturnin-les-Apt
Contemporary meets historic
An eccentric cluster of stone houses set in a fertile swathe of the Lubéron, Domaine des Andéols isn't just festooned with modern art, but has also hosted exhibitions by Martin Parr, Ellen von Unwerth and Daido Moriyama.
The library is more like a fantastic museum bookshop, and the 20 rooms, spread over 10 maisons, are filled with artworks, bold colour and striking design. Maison des Lointains has its own Warhols; Maison des terrasses is blue-on-blue, with a great big deck; Maison de l'artiste is the calmest and most conventional space.
Next to the restaurant, which serves the domaine's own olive oil and dozens of varieties of tomato, is a tiny indoor bar, where vintage films are projected over a little plunge pool that marks the entrance to the Andéols spa. If the geometric, playful interiors are far removed from classic Provence, the crickets, cypress tress and lavender fields will remind you where you really are.
By Sophie Dening
Address: Domaine des Andéols, Saint-Saturnin-les-Apt, Vaucluse, France
Telephone: +33 4 90 75 50 63
Website: andeols.com
Price: Doubles from about £190
- Tristan Shu
Domaine de la Baume, Tourtour
Grand 18th-century house near Tourtour
Not taking bookings for the 2017 season and it is closed for the foreseeable future
Up towards the protected green wilds of the Parc Naturel du Verdon, set away from the famously pretty village of Tourtour, Domaine de la Baume, once home to the Expressionist painter Bernard Buffet, has 99 acres of formal gardens, olive groves and woodland.
With a swimmable waterfall pool and garden paths that lead on and on, past fig trees to a horse paddock and a chapel, it's hard not to wander off and explore when you're meant to be playing pétanque, or waiting for teatime tuiles aux amandes (the food is top-end yet unfiddly).
Behind the ochre façade, Jocelyne Sibuet, France's most creative hotelier, has poured her energy into decorating the rooms with a theatrical eye and clever antique finds, including endearing iron hounds flanking the fireplace in the lobby. Walls are covered with Indian print and toile de Jouy fabrics from Braquenié, and floors are trompe-l'oeil and hexagon-tiled; the salons and suites, though far from period pieces, feel worthy of Madame de Moitessier as painted by Ingres.
Taking a smaller room, such as Hirondelle de Mer, with its huge, strikingly tiled shower and glorious view over the parterre and wooded hills beyond, will not disappoint. There are 15 rooms so far, with 24 more to come this year and plans for a spa in the old chicken sheds.
By Sophie Dening
Address: Domaine de la Baume, Tourtour, Var, France
Telephone: +33 4 57 74 74 74
Website: domaine-delabaume.com
Price: Doubles from about £365 including breakfast and dinnerPublished in Condé Nast Traveller March 2014 and updated in June 2016