Son Brull Hotel & Spa

The Hotel

Son Brull occupies a 17th-and-18th-century former Jesuit monastery on a working agricultural finca on the road between Palma and Pollença, two kilometres south of Pollença town on Mallorca's north coast. The Jesuit order built the original chapel-and-cloister complex in the 1670s; the property was secularised in 1767 when the Spanish Crown expelled the Jesuit order; passed through the Cabrer-Suau Mallorca aristocratic-family ownership in the 19th century; and was restored as a 23-room luxury hotel in 2002-2003 by the current generation of the Suau family, the Inca-textile manufacturing family who acquired the property in the 1990s. The 50-hectare estate around the monastery is still actively farmed (olive groves, almond trees, Mediterranean herb gardens, and a chicken-and-vegetable operation that supplies the kitchen), Son Brull is one of the few Spanish luxury hotels with a structurally working farm.

The architectural register is the contemporary-Mediterranean restraint that the 2002 restoration applied to the original 17th-century stone fabric: exposed limestone walls preserved throughout, terracotta tile floors, the original cloister courtyard restored as the breakfast space, and a deliberately minimalist contemporary-Spanish interior register through the rooms, black-and-white photography, custom-made Mediterranean-hardwood furniture, and the deliberate decision to keep the historic monastery walls largely unhung. The 23 rooms run from entry-tier monastery-cell-footprint Doubles (22 sqm) through to the Suau Suite (75 sqm with private courtyard) and the named Honeymoon Suite (55 sqm with private outdoor bath in the restored 18th-century chapel-storage room).

365 (the in-house restaurant, named for the daily-changing tasting menu) is the most considered north-Mallorca fine-dining option and runs the Mediterranean-Mallorcan register that the working farm supplies, the kitchen sources around 70% of vegetables, eggs, herbs, and olive oil from the estate's own production. The restaurant is open to non-guests but typically holds about half its capacity for in-house guests in a region where the dining alternatives at the same standard require a 25-minute drive into Pollença or a 90-minute drive to Palma. The wine list runs about 350 bins, heavy on Mallorcan-island Bodega Ribas, Macià Batle, and Castell Miquel, with a strong Spanish range and a sub-list of Mallorcan-island vintage wines that returning Pollença-villa owners use as the property's main draw.

The Spa Son Brull is the most-developed wellness operation on Mallorca's north coast, 10 treatment rooms, an indoor heated pool, an outdoor infinity pool fronting the olive grove, and a Hammam-and-Finnish-sauna circuit that the 2014 spa renovation added. The wellness programme runs daily morning yoga on the cloister courtyard, the Son Brull-grown organic-product spa-treatment programme, and a structured five-night Detox & Tramuntana hiking retreat (the Tramuntana mountains are 25 minutes' drive, Son Brull runs a guided programme into the Lluc-Sa Calobra-and-Cala Tuent walking circuit). For an anniversary that wants the monastery-and-working-farm register over the Cap Rocat military-fortress one, a wellness retreat that takes the working-finca clean-eating programme as the anchor, or a north-Mallorca trip that pairs Pollença-bay sailing with a Tramuntana-mountain walking week, Son Brull is the most considered choice.

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