Owner-hosted Stays

The properties in this collection are run by their owners — not managed by a brand, not operated by a chain. The person who built the place is the person you meet at breakfast. Their dogs know the regulars. Their cook knows what's in season. The complimentary cookies at eleven, the late check-out granted by a shrug rather than a form, the staff who remember your name on a second visit — all of it follows from a host who is around because the place is theirs.
 
In Tuscany, Riccardo Barsottelli still pours at Locanda al Colle the wine he poured in 2017. In Amsterdam, Eric de Toren built Hotel TwentySeven into sixteen neo-Baroque suites on Dam Square, with Two Michelin Keys and the one-star Bougainville restaurant in his own house. In Nîmes, Jardins Secrets fills an 18th-century coaching inn with fourteen rooms, cloistered gardens and a Roman-bath spa; above Lake Garda, Relais Rossar runs the hills as a quiet spa retreat; and in Queensland, the Crocodile Hunter Lodge anchors the Irwin family's Australia Zoo with the wildlife encounter you can't book anywhere else.
 
These are the hotels our editors return to.