Marès, Miró And The Sea

Can Ferrereta is a 17th-century mansion of golden marès stone in Santanyí's old town, edited by the Soldevila Ferrer family into a calm, art-filled bolthole, with the south coast's best beaches half an hour off.

For centuries, this was the Bonet family's house, and the Bonets were known across Santanyí by a nickname, los Ferrereta, which in time became the building's name, then the street's, and now the hotel's. Can Ferrereta was taken on by the Soldevila Ferrer family, the same hands behind Sant Francesc in Palma, with the local studio Bastidas leading the architecture and WIT the interiors. The house stands beside the medieval Porta Murada in the old town, a quarter once fortified against Barbary pirates and now better known for its galleries and its Saturday market. The walls are golden marès, the same stone as Palma's cathedral.

The restoration was edited rather than rebuilt. The 17th-century arches stayed, as did the painted wooden beams and the traditional canyís cane ceilings; a sculptural poured-plaster staircase, Crittall windows in the courtyard and a dry-stone shepherds' dome in the garden joined them, additions that read as if they had always been there.

The register is vernacular-cosmopolitan, warm and unhurried: walls in raw plaster, beams above woven canyís, Santanyí stone underfoot, dark steel ribs framing the original arches. The furniture is restrained and serious, Hans Wegner cord chairs, pieces by Lissoni, Piet Boon, Anastassiades and GamFratesi, with the rest commissioned from Mallorcan artisans. Hessian rugs, gingham throws, dark-wood headboards, ceiling fans, French windows thrown open onto the bougainvillaea.

The art belongs to the Soldevila Ferrer family; every piece is made for the room it sits in. A Jaume Plensa head, two metres tall and 280 kilograms of it, gazes across the pool from beneath the olive trees; works by Joan Miró, Guillem Nadal, Jordi Alcaráz, Riera i Aragó, Miquel Planas, Manolo Ballesteros and Santiago Villanueva run the corridors, threaded throughout by Bárbara Vidal's photographs of the mansion when it stood empty.

The luxury at Can Ferrereta is the casual, unhurried kind. Days drift between the dark-green garden pool, the cypresses and the olives, and Sa Calma, the spa with its hammam and sauna. Dinner is in Ocre, set in the old wine cellar and named for the ochre facades that Santanyí owes to the sand-bearing winds off Africa; lunch is the lighter La Fresca, out among the greenery, or whatever arrives at the poolside bar. And then the sea: Es Caló des Moro, Mondragó, Es Pontàs and Es Trenc are each within half an hour. Old-stone calm, with sand on your feet inside the half-hour.

You will find this gorgeous hotel and much more of the Mediterranean, between the covers of UNWAXED LEMONS, our latest limited-edition print magazine.

Sculptural rendered staircase and stone arch in a courtyard at Can Ferrereta, Mallorca | The Aficionados

Reception at Can Ferrereta framed by a stone arch, exposed timber beams and a studded oak door | The Aficionados

Double-height sitting room at Can Ferrereta with a paper-globe pendant, black staircase and caned armchairs | The Aficionados

Guest room at Can Ferrereta with a dark-wood headboard, ikat throw and black ceiling fan | The Aficionados

Indoor pool at Sa Calma spa, Can Ferrereta, with arched Crittall windows and stone loungers | The Aficionados

For more of the Mediterranean's finest hotels, see UNWAXED LEMONS, our collectable print magazine, from The Aficionados, on sale now.

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