Grand Hotel Son Net
Hotel · Puigpunyent ·
Stately rooms, valley views, private gardens, fine dining, spa
.jpg "Grand Hotel Son Net by Salva López/Grand Hotel Son Net")
.jpg "Grand Hotel Son Net by Salva López/Grand Hotel Son Net")
.jpg "Grand Hotel Son Net by Salva López/Grand Hotel Son Net")
Stately rooms, valley views, private gardens, fine dining, spa
"Secluded on the top of a mountain, the exceptional service made me feel like a world-famous celebrity." - Anna Grace Lee
"Located on Mallorca, the Grand Hotel Son Net looks like a classic film set, with the Puig de Galatzó mountain, part of the Serra de Tramuntana, as a dramatic backdrop. The building’s history dates back to 1672 and showcases impressive Balearic architecture, like a terra-cotta exterior, a 17th-century courtyard, gardens, and a private chapel. In 2023 the founders of Finca Cortesin took over management of the property with the aim of regaining the brightness of its glory days. In and outside the main building, 31 suites, some as large as 1,615 square feet, give an idea of how intimate this place wants to be. Lorenzo Castillo has carefully restored the hotel’s original charm by adding elements like canopied beds and cozy furnishings. The extensive spa is a highlight, and the hotel’s cuisine reflects Mallorcan flavors with a subtle touch, emphasizing the idea that, even in a place where everything is more, less is more. From $635—David Moralejo" - CNT Editors
"Located on Mallorca, the Grand Hotel Son Net looks like a classic film set, with the Puig de Galatzó mountain, part of the Serra de Tramuntana, as a dramatic backdrop. The building’s history dates back to 1672 and showcases impressive Balearic architecture, like a terra-cotta exterior, a 17th-century courtyard, gardens, and a private chapel. In 2023 the founders of Finca Cortesin took over management with the aim of regaining the brightness of its glory days. In and outside the main building, 31 suites—some as large as 1,615 square feet—set an intimate tone. Lorenzo Castillo has carefully restored the hotel’s original charm by adding elements like canopied beds and cozy furnishings. The extensive spa is a highlight, and the hotel’s cuisine reflects Mallorcan flavors with a subtle touch, emphasizing that, even in a place where everything is more, less is more." - CNT Editors
"Why book? Because this restored family estate is more than a step up for the Mallorcan hotel scene. It’s also a remarkable showcase of heirlooms and antiques from around the world, which – unusually for a new opening – already has the feel of a classic. Set the scene Outside, this is a classic Mallorcan finca in vine-strewn pinkish terracotta, with classical Mediterranean gardens around the terrace and pool overlooking Puigpunyent, a sleepy little stone town cradled by the dramatic peaks of the Tramuntana mountains. Inside, it’s a riot of antiquarian exuberance: a dense layering of textures and influences, but with an overriding sense of citrus-y freshness to offset the Baroque portraits and Syrian mother-of-pearl chests, which could easily be museum pieces. The backstory Really, this is a renovation of a renovation. Son Net started life in 1672, as the palacio of the Net family, who had the balustrades, vaulted ceilings and frescoes designed in the European aristocratic style now most readily associated with Renaissance Italy. Towards the end of the 20th century, the estate was falling into relative disrepair when it was bought by the US property entrepreneur David Stein, who lived here before opening a hotel in 1998. In turn, the velveteen interiors and splashy pop art he introduced had started to pall a little by late 2020, when he sold to Javier López Granados, the art collector and owner of Finca Cortesin, the much-loved resort on the Andalucian coast west of Marbella. For Grand Hotel Son Net’s coming-out as a Cortesin hotel, López Granados handed the creative reins to Lorenzo Castillo, the Madrid-based art historian, antiques collector and interior designer, who has previously brought his very personal brand of heirloom maximalism to projects including Madrid’s grand 19th-century Santo Mauro and Menorca’s homelier Cristine Bedfor. Castillo, who describes Son Net as “the sort of project a designer only gets once in a lifetime”, has filled the place with genuine antiques, either sourced bespoke or from his own personal collection. The rooms Each of the 31 rooms, including six poolside cottages away from the main house, has its own unique design. Some lean towards Imperial China, Renaissance Italy or colonial Spain, but are all richly textured, many with bespoke fabrics and large marble bathrooms with upholstered chairs. We stayed in the Grand Suite Maria de Napoles – a grand space named after a Mallorcan queen, and with original frescoes from the 17th century. Castillo was inspired in part by Moorish North Africa, painting the beams a sunny blue and designing a breezy exotic fruit fabric for the curtains, headboard and plush chairs in the vast bathroom, the size of some studio apartments. As in much of the hotel, there’s a playful interplay between zestier elements and the almost-intimidating dark wood four-poster bed, antique rugs and gilt-framed revolutionary engravings. Penhaligon’s bath products, Riojas in the minibar and shoehorns by the safe hint at the hotel’s general leaning towards a frictionless, global-standard sort of five-star. Food and drink The main Mar & Duix restaurant, which spills from the cavernous triple-height former olive press onto the bucolic terrace, is overseen by Mallorcan chef Sergio Olmeda, who worked at Son Net before the Cortesin takeover. His is a classically balanced take on locavore, using the hotel’s vegetable garden to add freshness to dishes including a quail salad with pickled carrots and ginger, a beetroot tartare with herring roe and zingy apple, or a tender Iberian Dam pork with fresh pea puree, mint and a sauce based on sobrasada, the ubiquitous Balearic cured sausage. The Breakfast Experience, with its foamy granola and bright fruits, could take up a whole happy morning, while lunch at the al fresco Gazebo might involve a salad of exquisite Mallorcan tomatoes followed by an unctuously rich prawn rice. The Green Bar, on the way to the restaurant, does all the classics beautifully as well as house cocktails including the crisp Son Net, which uses local gin Eva mixed with fresh mandarin, honey, fresh lime and soda. The neighborhood Puigpunyent, overlooked by jagged peaks including the historically sacred Puig Galatzo, remains relatively undiscovered, with little restaurants like Sa Vinya mostly populated by unhurried locals. It’s barely half an hour to drive to the center of Palma, and a little longer over steep winding roads to get to the coast at Banyalbufar. On chic Mallorcan itineraries, this will likely be the peaceful stop between the cool boutiques of Palma and the beach. The service The aim is clearly to reach the discreetly stellar levels of service as Finca Cortesin, and staff numbers have more than doubled since the transition. Many worked at the old Son Net, but some are transplants from Finca Cortesin, including the wonderful Thai masseuse Jintana Buakham, who carries out her bespoke touch-based massages with no-nonsense authority. Others are local hires, like the waistcoated Moroccan Abdel Moumou, who used to work at a restaurant in Puigpunyent and exudes the neat mastery of only the very best career waiters. Who comes here? A grown-up crowd of Finca Cortesin devotees (there are lots of those) and the kind of guests who require a certain brand of frictionless five-star. Until now, only a few Mallorcan hotels have aimed for that sort of rarefied level – Belmond’s La Residencia in Deia is one – but the island has gone upmarket fast, with plans afoot for Four Seasons and Mandarin Oriental to open resorts here in 2024. For families This isn’t really a family hotel per se, but kids can feed the donkeys and collect eggs from the hens on the onsite farm, and babysitting can be arranged. The Pool Cottage House has its own private pool, effectively offering a full villa experience alongside hotel service. Eco effort The hotel water comes from a private mountain spring and is stored in water cisterns onsite, while a pluvial system collects rainwater to irrigate the expansive gardens. The saline swimming pool is more eco-friendly than chlorine, while the Penhaligon’s products (not single-use) are made of recycled materials. Also, unlike so many hotels that reproduce designs en masse, Castillo generally sourced and repurposed existing pieces, and re-upholstered many of the sofas from the hotel’s former iteration. Accessibility Both restaurants are wheelchair friendly, as is one of the specially designed Palace Rooms. But the 1672 design isn’t always conducive to free movement so call ahead to check with regards to your specific requirements if necessary. Anything else to mention? A 1,000sqm spa – all Moorish arches and light gardens – is being built with discreet Mallorcan stone into the terraced level below the classic aquamarine pool. Son Net plans to stay open through the winter, a relative rarity in Mallorca, and it’s easy to imagine the appeal of bathing in Romanesque pools overlooking Puigpunyent and the mountains. Garden enthusiasts and art historians will also find much to admire, from a 500-year-old cypress tree with branches like thick veins to the ominous oil portrait in the stairwell by the great Spanish Baroque painter Jusepe de Ribera. Is it worth it? This is a singular and elevated hotel, which already feels like it’s raising the game in Mallorca. Some might find all the history a bit weighty: the many types of marble, all those rugs, the revolutionaries and noblement peering from the walls. But for those that appreciate real antiques and heirlooms, Son Net is an almost Ullysean grand tour of the imagination that contains multitudes." - Toby Skinner
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"Now and then, there arrives a new hotel that feels like it's been around forever. Son Net, a baroque 17th-century estate cradled by Mallorca’s Tramuntana Mountains, is such a hotel—a place of densely layered and singular antiquarian exuberance. A grand family estate that was first turned into a hotel by American real estate mogul David Stein in 1998, Son Net has been reborn under Javier López Granados, the art collector and creator of iconic Andalusian resort Finca Cortesin. López Granados handed the creative reins to Lorenzo Castillo—a Madrid-based art historian, antiques collector, and interior designer—who filled each of the 31 rooms and suites with heirlooms from across the world. Castillo also designed bold fabrics for the vast suites’ curtains and upholstery that nod to styles from chinoiserie to Spanish colonial and Italian Renaissance. The final result feels like the home of a magpie collector—one with an eye for both ominous oils and comical ceramic ducks. As the sister property to Finca Cortesin, the hotel also hits a level of service that few Mallorcan hotels can match. Dextrous waistcoated staff attend to every whim, in every artfully curated space: from the fabric-walled Chimney Room serving up house gin cocktails to the locavore restaurant in a double-height former olive press; from the aquamarine pool set in cypress-scented gardens to the soon-to-open 10,763-square-foot spa with Morrish touches. Add to this a backdrop of sacred mountains, and the entire setting feels like a grand tour of the imagination. From $692. —Toby Skinner" - CNT Editors
