The best rustic luxe farm stays in Europe: from a 13th-century château to a vegan agriturismo
By Alicia Miller,
2024-08-28
Domaine des Etangs
What comes to mind when you think ‘ farm stay’? Muddy pigs? Bales of hay? Bedrooms dressed in gingham? Certainly not yoga workshops, al fresco hot tubs or Michelin-worthy menus — but that’s exactly what you’ll get at the new breed of agro-accommodation, where country life comes supplemented with city-worthy style appeal.
This is our pick of the crop, with highlights ranging from plush spas to live music nights. Old McDonald won’t know what hit him.
Le Barn, France
Check in for a chic French farm stay at Le Barn (Le Barn)
It’s only 45 minutes from Paris, but Le Barn’s estate in the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse feels properly rustic, with 500 acres of forest, wild swimming lake and farmland to explore. Get your hands dirty in a workshop plucking courgette, aubergine and cabbage from the permaculture veg garden, or meet the horses at acclaimed on-site equestrian school La Cense — guided rides are available to suit all abilities. A rota of other activities, from yoga to photo workshops or pétanque, keeps days varied beyond the farm fun. Mid-century-influenced bedrooms in soothing neutrals, meanwhile, are chic enough to have been lifted straight from the Marais.
Enjoy the sweeping bucolic views at Guardswell Farm (Murray / Guardswell Farm)
Fluffy sheep. Shetland cattle and Angora goats. Rambling apple orchards producing house-made cider. This 150-acre family-run property has everything you could want in a farm stay — with the added benefit of sweeping panoramic views over the surrounding countryside. The Lamottes, who’ve owned Guardswell since 2011, are passionate about sustainable diversification and now operate six eco-conscious self-catering stays on site, some with wood-fired hot tubs and Big Green Egg barbecues. Book off-grid The Infield (sleeps two) for a stargazing deck, or Guardswell Farmhouse (sleeps 10) for a party pad with firepit.
Explore rambling organic estate São Lourenço do Barrocal (Ash James / São Lourenço do Barrocal)
From sun-warmed olive groves to manicured vineyards, ancient oaks to neolithic rock structures, this 1,900-acre family-owned Alentejo farm has endless sun-soaked corners to explore. Eating is naturally a major focus: everything from wine to honey is produced here, with goodies served up in four dining spaces including al fresco garden restaurant Hortelão. Beyond the plate you can avail yourself of the tranquil spa, which is host to fragrant body scrubs and tai chi sessions, or try rural-chic activities like flower arranging and pottery workshops. Simple but stylish whitewashed rooms with terracotta tile floors and wool blankets might gaze out to medieval hilltop village Monsaraz or across wild meadows.
Tewinbury hosts regular Roots supper club events (Tewinbury)
Despite being a working farm, Tewinbury doesn’t lean only on its abundance of fresh on-site fruit, veg, wheat and barley to turn your head. With four restaurants, a spa treatment room, cinema, cookery school and weekly live music events, it’s as much a celebratory destination as it is a bucolic unwind. Choose from lakeside cabins with alfresco hot tubs, a shepherd’s hut or homely farmhouse bedrooms accented with wooden beams. When you want to work off the effects of one of their Roots communal supper club nights, pull on wellies from the communal boot room, borrow a map and some of the 700 acres.
Michelberger Farm’s epic brick barn space was designed by Sigurd Larsen (Michelberger Farm)
The countryside sister to Berlin’s industrial-minimalist Michelberger Hotel, this design forward spot in the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve combines a sharp-angled red brick aesthetic with a serious field-to-fork ethos. For the past six years the team has been cultivating a holistic ‘food forest’, growing as much as possible across their 3.7 acres. Communal breakfasts and dinners, set within a window-lined barn conceived by architect Sigurd Larsen, feature homegrown tomatoes, squash and onions, with meat and dairy hailing from other surrounding farms.
Husk has stylish rooms in converted grain silos (Husk)
While this bolthole in Thorington calls itself a supper club with rooms, between the farmstead location and quirky interiors — spread across converted grain silos and former Victorian cow barns — there’s a distinctly bucolic vibe. Chef-owners Joey O’Hare and Katy Taylor produce their own chicken, quail and goose eggs from on-site flocks (say hello to the birds in the aviary or down by the pond) as well as heritage variety fruit and veg from a half-acre garden. When you aren’t eating their produce in menus featuring Blythburgh pork tenderloin or smoked cod’s roe, swim in the natural pool or steam in the eco-sauna. Then bed down in one of seven rooms with Farrow & Ball tones and free-standing rolltop baths.
Rustic-chic is order of the day at vegan I Pini (I Pini)
See farm animals as friends, not food? Make for this vegan agriturismo in the Tuscan vine-lined hills by walled medieval town San Gimignano. Eleven rooms are the picture of rural elegance: terracotta brick floors, stucco walls, floaty fabrics and statement lamps — and the vibe extends out to the artfully crafted restaurant plates. Feast on regeneratively farmed, 100% organic veg, fruit and herbs, supplemented with house-made olive oil from their own aged groves. Wash everything down with I Pini’s own wine — produced from grapes hand-picked in a communal harvest each autumn.
Coombeshead Farm makes the most of season veg in its restaurant (Oscar Holgado / Coombeshead Farm)
Chef Tom Adams’s foodie haven near Bodmin Moor will make you want to up sticks and move to Cornwall. His elegant but relaxed set menu restaurant — which has been awarded a Green Michelin Star — and nine pretty farmhouse bedrooms are only the tip of the iceberg. There’s an on-site bakery (with life-changing sourdough), a glossy farm shop and 66 acres of scenic valley, where the team rears their own pigs, cows, chicken and lamb with help from local farmers. Depending on when you visit, you might catch sight of Red Devon cattle moving through the grasses or Gauloise hens in woodlands.
Domaine des Etangs, Auberge Resorts Collection, France
The grounds from above at Auberge Resorts’ Domaine des Etangs (Domaine des Etangs, Auberge Resorts Collection)
Between the epic 13th-century château and extensive contemporary art collection, this luxe resort might not immediately seem much like a farm. But look beyond the pools and spa, and among the rambling acreage of forest, ponds and fields you’ll find a large herd of prize Limousin cattle and an extensive organic veg garden and orchard. The latter fuels a farm-to-table restaurant, Dyades, but for the full rural immersion go self-catered, booking one of six self-catering ‘métairie’ farm buildings. Dotted in secluded spots around the 2,500 acres, they come complete with atmospheric original barn features and high-spec furnishings.
The Ferry House is set on farmland in Harty (Ferry House)
Fringed by two national nature reserves, Harty’s pancake-flat landscapes have been farmed by the Burdens for three generations. The family bought the 16th-century Ferry House in 2000, turning the inn into a celebration of local, low-waste produce with veg from their own garden, beef and eggs from the family farm and surrounding estate, and game from the grounds (keep eyes peeled for fleeting pheasant and red-legged partridge in the fields — chef James Pilcher smokes it for his menu). Comfy guest rooms with wooden beds and floral wallpapers sit the right side of countryside kitsch, though you can also book self-catering cottages, set in and around an old farmhouse up the road.
Horses are among the animals you’ll meet at Masseria Prosperi (Katja Brinkmann / Masseria Prosperi)
Can’t decide between a farm break and a beach break? Get both at this upmarket Puglian masseria, mere minutes from the coastal sands and azure surf. In the morning you can hang with the on-site donkeys, goats and geese; wander through groves of knobbly olive trees; meet the bees from the onsite honey hives — then nip to the local Blue Flag beaches for a lazy afternoon. When you return you’ll bed down in one of eight elegant rooms that encapsulate the Puglian whitewashed aesthetic. Got a crowd in tow? You can exclusively hire the whole villa, too.
Rural bliss at the spa at Hacienda Zorita (Hacienda Zorita)
This Salamanca estate has serious history: it dates to 1336, when it was a monastery, and hosted Christopher Columbus. Now as a hotel and farm estate it rents out simple but stylish wood-beamed bedrooms and family-friendly villas, a laid-back base from which to explore the surrounding rambling gardens and organic farm. Visit the spa, set in a historic water mill and featuring olive and grape-based treatments; explore the on-site cellars where rum ages; and delve into the dedicated cheese room, full of house-made dairy wheels. In autumn, you can even get involved in helping harvest grapes for the estate’s wine.
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