Hasta La Ideas

Designer Armin Fischer has converted an old stone farmhouse in the Ibizan countryside into a rustic members-only retreat offering guests ritualistic activities like communal farming and meditation (+ slideshow).

Fischer’s Germany-based interior design studio Dreimeta created La Granja Ibiza for Design Hotels, a booking company representing over 270 boutique design hotels worldwide.

The resort offers 10 bedroom suites within the 200-year-old farmhouse, as well as a separate two-bed garden property surrounded by citrus, fig and almond trees. It also includes a pool and restaurant serving produce from the grounds.

The hotel’s pared-back design, coupled with its emphasis on outdoor living, is intended to offer an alternative to Ibiza’s clubber-oriented resorts. Instead, it is more in keeping with the hippy scene that dominated the Spanish isle in the 1950s.

“In a world where travel and hotels are surrounded by technology, extravagant comforts and unnecessary distractions, La Granja encourages guests to return to the basics: modesty, rustic simplicity, and the beauty of imperfection,” said Fischer.

“The design of the space honours rustic simplicity, growth and decay, modesty and intransigence,” he added.

Each room is finished with a palette of dark burnt wood, brushed and oiled ash wood, stone and slate – an antithesis to traditional whitewashed fare of the Ibizan coast.

Dark painted walls, distressed wooden furniture and free-standing baths are also used to give the rooms a “back to basics” appearance, explained Fischer.

“The aim was to translate the basic concepts – focusing on the essential, the beauty of natural materials and imperfections – into a design approach,” said the designer.

“While eliminating the non-essential, the hotel still provides guests with all the necessary comforts – less is more, as they say. “

“La Granja Ibiza appeals to a growing demographic of high-end travellers who seek meaningful, authentic experiences and a sense of connectedness with local communities, rather than typical, resort-like accommodation with little organic connection to the local environment,” he added.

La Granja is Design Hotel’s first members-only venture. It is a collaboration with Friends of a Farmer – an organisation promoting sustainable crop growing, as well as art and music projects.

Hotel members have access to a “programme of rituals” during their stay. These include slow-food workshops, meditation and yoga, music experiences and communal farming.

“La Granja Ibiza is a study in holistic hospitality born from the growing desire to connect in real time over shared experiences – an antidote to the increasingly online nature of our times,” Design Hotel founder Claus Sendlinger told Dezeen.

“La Granja is based on an experimental members-only model, with membership offering access to room reservations, as well as the full programme of holistic, gastronomic, and cultural events,” he added.

Profits from La Granja Ibiza will be fed back into a number of sustainability projects in the community.

Photography is by Steve Herud.

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