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Ramón Londaiz raised Villa Soro for his daughter in 1898. More than a century on, this historic San Sebastián boutique hotel still pairs Tudor pomp with Basque art and txakoli by the fire.
Eguzki Soro, "sun field" in Basque, was the name of this house when Ramón Londaiz built it in 1898 as a wedding gift for his daughter María, and it is the name Villa Soro still carries today. Architect Luis Elizalde, in his fondness for the Victorian, gave it steep gables, mock-Tudor timbering and an oak staircase rising from a stained-glass entrance. Down the road at Palacio Miramar, Queen María Cristina was building her summer residence in much the same idiom. Today the building is a protected Site of Historical Heritage, which is a grand way of saying the city decided it was too lovely to lose.
The Soldevila Ferrer family's recent restoration kept the bones: chequerboard floors polished back, stained-glass ceiling and oak staircase preserved, Pierre Ducasse's 1898 gardens (the same hand that laid out Miramar's) revived, and the former stables, the caballerizas, reimagined in a quieter modern key. The result is Villa Soro, a 25-room boutique hotel, fifteen in the main villa, ten in the old stables, that carries its 19th-century grandeur without fuss.
Inside the main house, Regency pomp survives: dark woods, panelled walls, deep armchairs, a leather-and-oak bar pouring txakoli and Basque vermouth in front of an open fire. The stables shift the register: Crittall windows, blonde wood, a monochrome palette, pared back, so the old stone does the talking. The art is unmistakably Basque: Chillida's iron, Oteiza's stone, Manterola's "drawings in space".
This is San Sebastián, the world's most Michelin-starred postcode per capita, and Villa Soro sits a short stroll from the pintxos counters of the Parte Vieja, where you graze your way through gildas, anchovies and Idiazábal before anyone mentions a tasting menu. Arzak and Mugaritz are a taxi away, the Bay of La Concha ten minutes, Zurriola's surf and the old town closer still. Come home leafy and quiet, and there is that glass of txakoli waiting by the fire.
For more of the Mediterranean's finest, see UNWAXED LEMONS, our collectable print magazine, from The Aficionados, on sale now.
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Get the insider news and lowdown on what we've been up to, where we've been, and who we've met along the way. Be the first to discover new places and get the scoop on our favourites.