Ever wondered where to find the best luxury hotels that are worth the splurge? Look no further than the Hideaway Report, the newsletter from travel aficionado Andrew Harper.
For more than 30 years, the elusive Mr. Harper has circled the globe, incognito, in search of the truly special gems of the world. Check out his conversation with Peter about some of this year’s best in travel awards.
Peter Greenberg: Now it’s time to hear your picks the year’s best in travel. There are some interesting surprises here.
Andrew Harper: Well, we do have an idiosyncratic list. These are just places that I’ve been in the last 12 months of fairly relentless travel, but I try to cover the world as much as I can. The hideaway of the year is Il Salviatino, a wonderful place outside of Florence in Italy, out in on a hillside in Fiesole overlooking Florence.
PG: It is quite an interesting place and quite a labor of love for the owner.
AH: It was an amazing project that took them several years and involved all the local crafts people. I think that’s one of the more interesting things. It is a very old building, but an enormous labor of love went into restoring the frescoes, the paneling, the old glass houses, and really putting back together a 500 or 600-year-old building. In the course of the restoration hey actually found some interesting things like buried frescoes underneath full ceilings and that kind of thing. It’s just a beautiful, old, Italian house with a sensational view of Florence and the massive cathedral dome there at the center of the view. It is one of these glorious places, reasons for travel.
PG: It’s about 4 miles from the center of Florence but I’m telling you, it’s just far enough away from Florence that you feel like you’re in another world.
AH: There’s a lovely place up there called the Villa San Michele, which was actually designed by Michelangelo. But it’s a kind of hill town overlooking the city. In Florence in the summertime, because of the River Orne, it actually gets very hot and sticky. So about 500 or 600 years ago, very wealthy people who like to have a place up on the hillside looking down at the rest of us sweating it out down in the town.
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PG: Exactly. Now let’s move to North America for a second because a couple of places I thought were interesting surprises, like the Lake Placid Lodge.
AH: A lot of things we look at in the Hideaway Report are new places, but we also go back and look at classic places. In the case of the Lake Placid Lodge, it’s a classic place that burned down a few years ago and has been very beautifully put back together again. It’s just an American classic in a sensationally beautiful place, and that’s why it gets into our award list for this year.
PG: Then the other one, Andrew, I thought was really interesting because every time I go to Toronto I’ve had trouble finding really great hotels. The original Four Seasons is there, but they’re trying to rebuild it and re-do it. They have the Park Hyatt which is a great spa, and then you have the old railroad hotel which is the old Royal York. And you’ve picked the Hazelton.
AH: I think a it’s a very superior boutique hotel, with extremely high-level service. It has a very notable restaurant and particularly nice in the summer time you can eat outside in the courtyard there, and very fine cuisine. As you rightly say, Toronto is an interesting hotel town because it is the home base of the Four Seasons Hotel Group, and although Four Seasons has some fantastic hotels around the world, the one in their hometown has never been regarded generally as one of the better ones. But in the short term, perhaps the Hazelton is the place for those people who prefer the smaller hotels and the more personal ambiance.
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PG: Let’s move on to the Caribbean.
AH: We found a lovely small place down there, Peninsula House in the Dominican Republic, which is an exquisite four or six-bedroom property down there. It’s just a lovely kind of hideaway place we’re always looking for. The new glamorous place can always be discovered somewhere or another, but finding little gems hidden away can be a difficulty. People always say to me, “Why didn’t you find more of those places? Why can’t you tell me about the exquisite little place in France?” And the simple reason is there are just not that many of them. This place, however, I thought was absolutely beautiful. It’s a neoclassical-style plantation house building, with beautiful furniture, a beautiful art collection, and amazing food. It’s got that perfect combination, really.
PG: Hey, I’ve got one for you that I just discovered about three months ago in Cartegena, Colombia.
AH: I haven’t been to Cartegena for some years, I’m ashamed to say. But Colombia currently is on my radar again because the country is clearly more peaceful and sorted out than it used to be.
PG: I’m so glad I can give you one. It is called Tcherassi House, only six bedrooms, it’s perfect for you. It’s built by this designer who lives in Florida and it’s just exquisite.
AH: I shall look that up. It’s an absolutely beautiful city as I’m sure you would agree. It’s one of the nicest of all the baroque Spanish colonial cities. I remember it fondly and it’s certainly is time I went back there.
PG: Now a number of hotels in England made your list. There’s one called Lime Wood.
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AH: This is interesting, I think, because the country house hotel has been a staple of the English landscape for about 50 years now. They really started with one called Sharrow Bay up in Ullswater. And then another one came around called Gravetye Manor in London. 
This was about 50 years ago and the whole English country house thing developed over time. There is now a kind of new wave of properties that are catering to a younger market who like spas, who like more cutting-edge cuisine. They probably like more contemporary art, contemporary furniture. This one, Lime Wood is a very nice combination old and new. It’s got the cozy stuff, sitting by the log fire kind of the English country thing, the long walks and horse rides. But on the other hand the cuisine is very much of a more contemporary cast. There’s lovely contemporary art collections on their walls. It’s the next generation, if you will, of the English country house hotel.
On the same trip I actually went to the contrasting one, which we also elevated to our Best of the Year list, which is called Amberly Castle on the south down south of London. It is really the polar opposite because it is inside a 700-year-old castle. That is very, very traditional English and very good at what it does. It is a nice contrast to the sort of country houses that have been around for 50 years and these new generation of country house properties appealing to a younger age group.
PG: It’s not just the hotel, it’s the people running it. The general manager at Tucker’s Point in Bermuda is Brian Young, who I knew from his days at Rosewood. It’s nice to see that you named him Hotel Manager of the Year.
AH: Yes, I mean it is always a difficult one. These things are very arbitrary. You know you have a particular experience and try to use your experience overtime to make an assessment. Mr. Young impressed us greatly. He seemed to have his relatively new property under control and was completely gracious and charming to me personally. Indeed, we gave him that accolade, which was nice to be able to do. We can’t go to 1,000 hotels in a course of a year, but certainly we do our best to make these awards have some relevance.
PG: And you know what? I do think they’re relevant, because I haven’t disagreed with a single one yet.
AH: It’s always nice to be agreed with.
By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio.
Related links on PeterGreenberg.com:
- Peter Greenberg’s Travel Detective Blog
- Hotels & Accommodations section
- Where To Stay Recommendations
- Luxury Travel section
