Best design hotels in Lanzarote

Paradisus Salinas Lanzarote heads this list because an architect and an artist made it together. Fernando Higueras designed the building, built from 1973 to 1977: a Y of exposed concrete whose three arms step down the site in terraces and skylights. César Manrique did the rest, the murals, the pool and the gardens, indoors and out.

At the heart of the building, beneath the octagon, his water garden drops in shallow steps and runs along a channel under trailing plants, with daylight falling from the skylights. His carved murals cover the walls of the old lobby, now the Ginger Lobby Bar, and of the original restaurant, where the finest is in porous red basalt. Outside, planted terraces climb the building the way the island's farm terraces climb its hills, and the 1,800 m² seawater lagoon pool winds through basalt and white walls. The gardens carry the highest grade of protection in Teguise's municipal catalogue.

La Casa de los Naranjos is a 19th-century manor in Haría, brought back from near ruin with the house's own wood, stone and lime and advice from the Cabildo's historic heritage service. Lanzarote's heritage catalogue lists it as a monumental building, and the Canary government classes it a Hotel Emblemático.

Each of the eight rooms is different. Original floors, doors and paintwork survive, and the furniture is antique or made from the building's salvaged timber, down to headboards and desks. The shared spaces carry as much: a south-facing salon with two tall windows, a library of 19th-century books with globes and an atlas table, a stone-arched cistern beneath the patio, the orange garden and a roof terrace above the palms. The Casa-Museo César Manrique is about 570 metres away, 8 minutes on foot.

Hotel Fariones is design of a different kind: the hotel where Lanzarote's beach holidays began, in 1966, on the point at the western end of Playa Grande. A full renovation from 2016 to 2020, costing more than €30 million, brought it back as a five-star with 213 rooms in place of 242, with interiors by the Canarian designer Rafael del Castillo.

What stayed matters as much as what changed: the palm garden around the pools is more than forty years old, and the infinity pool sits among the trees with the sea beyond. Every room has a sea-facing terrace, with rain showers and espresso machines from the entry rooms up. Higher up the ladder, the suites add freestanding baths and access to a rooftop terrace and pool looking across to Fuerteventura and Lobos.