Hotel de Tourrel

Hotel de Tourrel

The staircase at Hotel de Tourrel rises through sandstone arches inside a 17th-century private mansion in the center of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a detail the New York Times singled out when the property opened as a nine-room, three-floor conversion in 2015. Design Hotels lists it among its portfolio, and the renovation leans toward white and sand-colored surfaces that let the original stonework and painted wooden beams do the talking rather than furniture. Rooms carry air conditioning, minibars, bathrobes, slippers and soundproofing, with Nespresso machines and flat-screen TVs in the suites, and the property sits close enough to La Folie du Pain, the Musée Jouenne and Bob Appleman's Sculptures to reach on foot before check-out at noon. What separates it from the boutique hotels lining the same streets is the Rooftop, a seafood-tasting-menu restaurant that seats only fourteen guests through the summer season, paired with a 1,400-label wine list that spills into a cellar guests can privatize for up to twelve. Chef Thomas Cavasin runs the ground-floor restaurant, La Table, Tuesday to Saturday, drawing on a Camargue fisherman and the hotel's own vegetable garden. Staff speak English, French and German, pets are welcome for a fee, and parking is available for those arriving by car. None of this suits anyone hunting a big buffet breakfast; it rewards travelers who would rather spend an evening on fourteen seats above the rooftops than in a dining room built for two hundred. A nine-room, 17th-century mansion in central Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, restored with sandstone arches and a staircase the New York Times singled out. Its Rooftop restaurant seats only fourteen for a seafood tasting menu above the Alpilles, backed by a 1,400-label wine list. Pets and cars are welcome; big breakfast buffets are not.