The memorable hotels that really put the home in homely - The Times

The evening meal at Kanalhuset in Copenhagen always starts promptly at 7pm. Everyone — hotel guests and locals, about forty in total — sits together at long tables. Food comes out sharing style — organic chicken and Jerusalem artichoke with heaped bowls of salad, a cake with ice cream for pudding — there’s plenty of seconds. The meal costs £20; pudding £6; the chef Kristofer Josefsson used to work at the acclaimed Wilhelm restaurant in the Danish capital. 

The hotel itself is very beautiful. On the canalside at Christianshavn, it was part of a former naval hospital built in the 18th century. It has 12 rooms and 14 apartments with delightful 1970s furniture (no sludge colours here; everything has been reupholstered in jewelled blues and greens), there are pots of geraniums on window ledges, paintings and ceramics on display (B&B doubles from £320 for a two-night stay; kanalhusetcph.com). 

The owners Lennart and Sus Lajboschitz, who opened Kanalhuset in 2020 after selling the Flying Tiger chain of shops, live in another area of the building with members of their family in a multigenerational set of apartments. Part of their aim is to foster community; the hotel also organises harbour swimming sessions and yoga classes. 

My brother, cousin, and I chat with three fabulous, slightly raucous, recently retired Danish primary school teachers. Conversation flows — that’s the point — the long tables are so people can talk to each other. 

With a deliberate and delightful blurring of the lines between a traditional hotel and a home, Kanalhuset is a good example of what we’re terming a casa hotel. These are hotels where the owners live and breathe the projects they’ve taken on. There’s nearly always a family involved and sometimes they’ve been in the family for generations. I like these sorts of hotels very much. 

They’re meant to feel homely but in delightfully elevated ways; you may well find both a library and homemade cakes to help yourself to. There probably isn’t a traditional lobby or even a bar. Instead, you might find an honesty bar. If there’s a restaurant, tables are often communal. Because, above all, the idea here is to achieve an emotional connection. If you want to book a hotel like this, here’s my pick of some of the best.

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This collection of three historic townhouses in Stockholm’s embassy-filled Larkstaden district has grown since it opened in 2012 but even with 22 rooms and four apartments, it still lives up to a name which translates as At Home. Created by the designer Ilse Crawford and owner Jeanette Mix, it has heavily influenced other casa hotels, including Kanalhuset, by having a kitchen that guests are encouraged to wander into, a library, honesty bars and cakes to help yourself to while all the rooms are highly individual — with furniture that includes both antique and contemporary. B&B doubles from £569 (etthem.se). Fly to Stockholm

After cofounding the Yotel hotel chain, Gerard Greene decided to create something rather more intimate with his own holiday home. It’s become a ten-room hotel and a four-bedroom barn at the foot of La Garrotxa’s volcanic hills. Cyclists have access to a bike workshop and the emphasis is on conviviality; meals tend to be communal (and good value with a set price menu at £42 including wine) with guests hanging out at the swimming pool. There are several honesty bars. B&B doubles from £154. Fly to Girona

This eight-room hotel on the edge of the small town of Haria is the passion project of José Antonio García, who left behind a civil engineering career to restore a 19th-century manor he discovered on a family holiday. The orange trees surrounding them remain, along with the 200-year-old library, while the rooms are lofty, light and filled with antiques; dinners are by arrangement. Haria has good restaurants and a botanical garden within walking distance, with beaches a short drive away. B&B doubles from £188. Fly to Lanzarote

Jaime Parladé, who died in 2015, was Spain’s most famous interior designer. His mansion in the hills above Malaga is now a hotel run by his nephew. The remarkably beautiful terraced garden, with a saltwater swimming pool, is still tended by the gardeners who helped to create it. The seven rooms are stuffed with the antiques Parladé inherited or bought, while the restaurant, with views down to the Mediterranean, uses vegetables from the garden to create quintessential Andalusian dishes, served under a vine-clad pergola in summer. There’s a library and — should you like the look — a small antiques shop. B&B doubles from £188 (alcuzcuz.es). Fly to Malaga

Begur is the coolest corner of the Costa del Sol, and Carla Lloveras has restored this 17th-century house with a full roster of hipster touches. The seven rooms are named after influential women of the 1930s and are decorated with era-appropriate furnishings. There’s an honesty bar with natural wine and even the Virginia, a small spa named after Virginia Woolf. Lloveras is embedded in the area too — breakfast comes with cheese and charcuterie from her family’s shop and she’s on hand with restaurant and excursion information. B&B doubles from £167. Fly to Girona

Siblings Emanuel and Patricia de Sousa opened their seven-room hotel in 2012 in the distinctly cool Bombarda district. Originally an architect — and it shows in the imaginative restoration of this townhouse — Emanuel created a series of light, lofty rooms with a mix of antiques and contemporary Portuguese designs. He also leads in the kitchen — a much-loved space that produces extended brunches eaten at communal tables, in the walled garden in good weather, but also regular roast dinners. Room-only doubles from £87. Fly to Porto

The owner Daphne Valambous spent much of her childhood here and the family china still comes out for meals at this holiday home her father built in the 1980s. There are just seven gloriously spare rooms built into the caldera. The sunsets are off the scale, plunge pools have been created at strategic points and the sunloungers come with parasols in a deep wine colour, which match the specially designed beach towels. It’s still a family affair; Daphne’s brother, who runs Santorini’s very chic Vassaltis Vineyards, oversees the wine while the restaurant has just two tables, which are reserved for hotel guests. B&B doubles from £241. Fly to Santorini

In the 1950s Marco de Luca’s grandparents — one Italian, the other Danish — started a restaurant on the cliffs above the Marina Grande, Sorrento’s original fishing port. Now this 12-room hotel is a haven of design-minded fun; you’ll be sharing this villa with a significant art collection, including Ettore Sottsass’s playful 1990s designs, family furniture and views of Vesuvius. Guests gather in the kitchen for a vast, delicious breakfast; drinks come with substantial snacks. There’s a swimming pool and the hotel can make arrangements for a nearby beach club, while the harbour below — reached by a series of steps — has restaurants. Another nice touch: La Minervetta stays open in winter. B&B doubles from £398. Fly to Naples

On Via Carlo Ottavio Cornaggia, there’s a small, discreet sign. Ring the doorbell and you’ll be let into this new 16-room hotel run by cousins Filippo and Alberico Brivio Sforza. Built in the 1970s after part of the family palazzo was destroyed by a Second World War bomb, it’s now a bastion of mid-century cool — showcasing terrazzo floors, tall windows and sleek wood panelling, while contemporary interiors star Matteo Thun has designed furniture to complement. The best bit: the rest of the 15th-century palazzo is still filled with members of the Brivio family, giving it a genuinely intimate feel in the posh, central Carrobbia district, a ten-minute walk from the cathedral. A restaurant and bar will arrive next year. Room-only doubles from £330. Fly to Milan

In the Tuscan town of San Piero a Sieve, a 35-minute train from Florence, this hotel has been owned — and lived in — by the Ducci family since 1896; the present scion is Carlo Ducci, a former director at Vogue Italia. The ten bedrooms are 1950s-simple with brass bedsteads, but downstairs the family’s collections are spread throughout, including model ships built by Carlo’s father, Bruno, an engineer. Arrayed around a Medici tower rebuilt after the Second World War, the hotel is at the heart of this quintessential Tuscan wine town. Breakfast is served at a communal table to set you up for hikes or culture hunts. B&B doubles from £114. Fly to Florence

Just over ten years ago, Austrian couple Christopher and Heidi Mueller swapped corporate life to grapple with an abandoned 17th-century goat farm on a hilltop with views across Montepulciano and Pienza. The acclaimed result has gardens that lead to swimming pools and pergolas under which guests can drink negronis. Created from five stone houses laid out like a tiny private village, at its heart is a huge open-plan kitchen that fuels one of the area’s best restaurants. There are 12 rooms and suites — all with ancient beams polished amid very modish luxury. The Muellers — now with a family — still live on site.B&B doubles from £688. Fly to Florence

If you’re at home, you can have breakfast any time — and it’s the same here at this nicely cool Umbrian enclave. Opening the hotel in 2022, Frederik Kubierschky and Catharina Lütjens reinvigorated an abandoned 12th-century monastery while creating easy, informal hospitality, complete with fire pits, swimming pool and herb gardens. Known as VocMos, the hotel also has a bell tower, lavender-scented gardens and a bar where locals and guests mix until late.B&B doubles from £514. Fly to Perugia

Let’s crack the code on this one. Transplanted Parisian lawyer Jerome Perrin’s painstaking restoration of this grandiose 1885 building on the harbourside in St Martin de Ré has made it a word-of-mouth hit on this very chic island since opening in 2020. Packed with savoir-faire, the five rooms encompass both bright and sunny rooms and darker, more moodier rooms, filled with antiques sourced from Parisian flea markets, with original wood panelling and stained glass windows. Jerome is very much present, steering guests to nearby bicycle rentals as well as providing superbly French breakfasts — in the garden in summer, next to the swimming pool. Aperitifs and tapas are evening staples. Room-only doubles from £162. Fly to La Rochelle

The designer Ruth Kramer is responsible for the acclaimed hotels in the Wildland portfolio, including Lundies House and Killiehuntly Farmhouse but she lives in Vals, famous for its thermal waters. Kramer’s trademark style shines through this four-room hotel, on the banks of the Valser River, a tributary of the Rhine, especially in the communal areas that include a (very stylish) kitchen and an expansive living room packed with Scandi-design furniture. A lavish breakfast is provided; three nearby apartments offer more privacy. B&B doubles from £226 (brucke49.ch). Fly to Zurich

Any we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments

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