Across The Square From Llull

Lissoni, Citterio, Hayón, Starck: the furniture reads like a design fair. Yet Sant Francesc, an 1860 Palma mansion edited by the Soldevila Ferrer family, keeps its luxury, and a wall of commissioned art, low-key.

Across the square, in the basilica of Sant Francesc, Ramon Llull has lain in alabaster since 1487: Mallorca’s mystic-philosopher and the man who more or less invented literary Catalan. Sant Francesc Hotel takes its name from the basilica and quietly its temperament too. This is Palma’s old town at its best, Gothic at the door, the grid of Mayurqa behind, La Seu cathedral seven minutes off.

Sant Francesc Hotel occupies the 1860 Alomar Femenia mansion, a historic palau that the Soldevila Ferrer family restored in 2015 by editing rather than rebuilding. Frescoes were retouched, coffered ceilings preserved, and Crittall windows slipped into the arches. The old cistern became a gym, the watchtower a suite, the stables a restaurant. It is a master class in muted confidence: stone and checkerboard underfoot, lantern chandeliers hung from those coffered ceilings, a wrought-iron staircase that needs no introduction. At the centre, a courtyard of olive trees, patio windows climbing four storeys to a square of sky, the natural pitch for a morning cortado or an evening aperitif at the Sant Francesc hotel.

The rooms are quieter still. Whitewashed beams, suede benches, lime-washed floors, and the occasional Lissoni, Citterio, Starck, Hayón, Burks, Bermúdez or Gordon Guillaumier piece, each set down with deliberate care. The lighting is left to Davide Groppi and Bernard Schottlander. None of it announces itself.

The art is where the family’s hand is most evident. Almost everything in the building was commissioned, which is rarer than it sounds. Guillem Nadal’s gold swoop animates the salon; a Riera iAragó boat-form hovers above reception; in one corner, a totem of stacked river stones rises like a quiet exclamation. Works by Jordi Alcaráz, Miguel Ángel Campano, Emil Alzamora and Miguel Macaya run the corridors, alongside Bárbara Vidal’s photographs of the house as it was before restoration, the house keeping a record of what it used to be.

In the former stables, now Quadrat, Àlvar Albaladejo and Carles Forteza cook the island’s larder with restraint and the odd flash of mischief: sobrasada from the black Mallorcan pig, a properly aged steak tartare, a generous paella, the day’s catch, and on Sundays rice done three ways. Choose the à la carte or the tasting menu, L’Entorn, taken under the original vaults or out in the garden that spills toward the plaza. Afterwards, ride up to the roof, where a pool and a 200-square-metre terrace survey Palma’s terracotta and the great bulk of La Seu beyond.

Fabulous, obviously. Featured in UNWAXED LEMONS, our Mediterranean print edition.

Lobby at Sant Francesc Hotel with black-and-white checkerboard marble floor, wrought-iron staircase and commissioned art, Palma | The Aficionados

Courtyard lounge at Sant Francesc Hotel with coffered ceiling, cane armchairs and a Crittall arch onto the olive-tree patio | The Aficionados

Guest room at Sant Francesc Hotel with a Gothic cathedral view through the balcony window, Palma old town | The Aficionados

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