Art Hotels

An olive grove on a Napa hillside, with the sculpture starting in the car park.

The approach gives it away before the door does. Auberge du Soleil sits on a terraced hillside above the Napa Valley floor, inside a working olive grove, and the sculpture starts in the parking court rather than the lobby.

Its architecture borrows from the Mediterranean — ochre stucco, low tiled roofs, heavy timber — and the rooms are spread across low-rise buildings rather than stacked in a single block. Most open onto a private terrace facing west across the vines.

Art here is not a decorative afterthought. A sculpture walk threads through the olive trees, and the interiors carry rotating work rather than a fixed hang, so a second visit rarely looks like the first. The restaurant and its terrace remain the property's best-known room, and the valley view from it is the reason most guests book.

• Hillside setting
• Olive grove sculpture walk
• Terraced rooms
• Napa Valley views

A Georgian-fronted Somerset hotel that is formal from the drive and deliberately informal inside.

A Georgian-fronted country hotel in the Somerset fields, Babington House keeps its period shell and treats the interior as a contemporary project. The result is a building that reads formal from the drive and distinctly informal once you are inside.

The estate buildings carry most of the interest. A redundant chapel in the grounds was converted rather than restored, and the outbuildings hold the spa, the pool and the screening room. Original panelling and fireplaces survive in the main hotel; the furniture around them does not try to match.

Artwork is hung densely and without much reverence — prints, photography and paintings stacked up staircases in the manner of a collector's hallway. Walled gardens, a lake and long lawns surround it, and the hotel makes little effort to feel like a hotel.

• Georgian estate
• Converted chapel
• Densely hung artwork
• Walled gardens