Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
A rationalist masterpiece in Renaissance Florence
The interiors at Palazzo Ottaviani, Florence, were created in collabroation with local designer Luigi Fragola © Stefan Giftthaler
Palazzo Ottaviani, Italy
Price: from €800
Click: lungarnocollection.com
Florence is synonymous with the late medieval and the high Renaissance – it’s all about the loggias, turrets, domes and pediments. But the 20th century has its place here too; witness Palazzo Ottaviani, a rationalist palace on the piazza of the same name, a few hundred metres from the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. The marquess Diego di San Giuliano and his sisters originally bought it to create a museum dedicated to his father’s enormous collection of miniature trains (called HZERO, it occupies the entire ground floor and is worth a look-in).
Palazzo Ottaviani is located just a few hundred metres from the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella © Stefan Giftthaler
A room at Palazzo Ottaviani © Stefan Giftthaler
Now the Palazzo’s upper reaches have undergone a total restructuring, on which San Giuliano collaborated with Florentine designer Luigi Fragola, to house a collection of very glam serviced apartments. These range from one to four bedrooms (the largest has a wide terrace that can comfortably hold 50 for cocktails), assertively defined with slate-grey marble and polished wood. Fragola custom-created everything, down to the last brass sconce. Deep blue velvet sofas and delicate polished-metal tables bring art deco softness to masculine-leaning interiors. Lungarno Hotels, chaired by Leonardo Ferragamo (he’s a cousin of San Giuliano’s), is in charge of guest service, which is the Florentine definition of “in good hands”.
Ottoman glory retold in Thrace
The exterior of Imaret in Kavala
Imaret, Kavala, Greece
Price: from €22,000 for a five-night stay
Click: imaret.gr
It’s one of the better heritage-hotel stories of recent years: an Ottoman külliye, in Greece, built by the last dynastic pasha of Egypt, recently emerged from a decades-long rehabilitation. Imaret is the name the 18th-century Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali gave to the elegant madrassa complex he commissioned on the coast of eastern Macedonia, part of what was, in ancient times, Thrace.
Restoration of the building was overseen by preservationist Anna Missirian 
The suites at Imaret are dressed in raw cottons and linens in summer, and heavy silk-velvets in winter
Local preservationist Anna Missirian has dedicated most of her life to bringing Imaret back to its original glory, and it surfaces from a final round of restorations this month with eight enormous domed suites carved out of the original sleeping quarters and a series of splendid sitting and dining rooms fitted into what were once the offices and canteens. Suites are dressed in raw cottons and linens in summer, and heavy silk-velvets in winter. The results are stunning. Missirian’s view of the Imaret experience is equally purist: guests stay a minimum of five days; phones are discouraged in favour of contemplation. Every cultural excursion (of which there is a fascinating roster), meal or cooking class, wellbeing treatment and amenity is included in the price – which is not for the faint of heart, so here’s hoping Missirian can make her heritage-preservation cause memorable enough to justify it.
Porto’s new palace escape
The pool at Palacete Severo, Portugal
Palacete Severo, Portugal
Price: from €300
Click: palacetesevero.com
In Porto, Palacete Severo, which opened a few weeks ago, sees a former architect’s mansion in its own walled garden turned into a 20-room hotel. Eleven of them feature details – stained glass, mosaics and Portuguese azulejos (tiles) – incorporated into Ricardo Severo’s original designs when he built the house in 1904; a new wing incorporates some of the larger suites and a branch of the Paris-based Perspective Galerie, which exhibits a rotating curation of Portuguese and European artists throughout the hotel.
The hotel features art curated by Paris-based Perspective Galerie 
Palacete Severo is housed in a former architect’s mansion in its own walled garden
Downstairs is a spa with Turkish hammam and a Himalayan salt room, and in the garden there’s a long-enough-for-laps pool.
On Corsica, Murtoli’s mountainside retreat
A room at A Mandria in Corsica © Camille Moirenc
A Mandria, France
Price: from €265
Click: amandriadimurtoli.com
Domaine de Murtoli has been Corsica’s rustic-luxe destination for years – a several‑thousand-acre organic farm straddling the space between luxury hotel, villa collection and agriturismo, whose owner transformed its various buildings, from the manor house to cow shelters into exceptionally indulgent accommodations.
A Mandria, in the village of Sartène, Corsica © Camille Moirenc
The Suite Melagrana at A Mandria di Murtoli © Camille Moirenc
Its newest incarnation is A Mandria, a hotel in the village of Sartène, not far from the Domaine. It consists of a clutch of farmhouses and sheepfolds surrounding a pool, garden and restaurant, specialising in the kind of rustic Italian for which Murtoli’s olive groves, kitchen gardens and dairy were made. It’s a distilled version of the haute Murtoli experience – higher up and more mountainous, with a simpler take on design, but all the same Murtoli bounty.
Recommended
