Can Ferrereta

Can Ferrereta is the house that gave its street its name. It belonged to the Bonet family, known in Santanyí as the Ferrereta, and it stands beside the walled enclosure the town built against pirate raids. Built in 1774, it had stood empty for years and was derelict when the Soldevila Ferrer family, who restored the Sant Francesc hotel in Palma, took it on. With the Palma architects Bastidas they spent two years restoring it and building on the land behind, and opened it in 2021 as a 32-room hotel.

There are 13 rooms and 19 suites. The Deluxe rooms, about 35 m², are on the first and second floors of the old house, looking at the church or across the town's roofs. Then come Privilege rooms with double-height ceilings or more floor space, Junior Suites of 45 m², a two-level Duplex Suite with ceilings up to 6 metres and an original stone arch, and two Can Ferrereta Suites of 65 m² with French balconies and views of the courtyard, the street and the church. Terrace Suites of 45 to 50 m², in the new building at the back, each have a private garden with loungers and an outdoor shower, and the Pool Suite adds 70 m² of garden and its own heated pool, modelled on an old Mallorcan washing tank.

The design is restraint applied to an old house, taken back to its main walls and rebuilt inside, with the original stone arches kept, the old beams put back and the walls finished in lime. The stone is the same sandy local stone as the rest of Santanyí. Furniture comes from Piero Lissoni, Hans J. Wegner, Michael Anastassiades and GamFratesi. The art is the family's collection of contemporary Spanish work: Guillem Nadal, Jordi Alcaraz, Bárbara Vidal, a Joan Miró in the Can Ferrereta Suites, and a two-metre bronze head by Jaume Plensa among the olive trees beside the 25-metre pool, which is tiled dark green to look like a country reservoir. Ocre, the restaurant, sits in the old wine cellar, where one stone arch still carries old graffiti. The MICHELIN Guide lists Ocre and gives the hotel two Keys.

The trade is the sea. Santanyí is a market town, not a resort: Cala Santanyí is a 7-minute drive and Es Trenc about 25, so plan on a hire car, and on paying to park it. Not every room is in the old house, the hotel closes from late November to early March, and rates climb steeply from May. It takes adults and teenagers over 14 only. Book it for design and art inside a working Mallorcan town, with the Wednesday and Saturday market three minutes' walk away.