Made Hotel in New York City has caught attention for giving its resort fee an unusual name — “curation fee.”
Mallorca’s New Portella Hotel Is A Dream Of Understated Luxury
12.03.2024 - 09:25 / forbes.com / Ace Hotel
“The house was already wonderful,” says Enrique Miró-Sans. He’s talking about the 17th-century residence that his family spent two years transforming into an intimate, lived-in hotel in the walled old city of Palma, Mallorca.
“The stone and carpentry were already wonderful,” continues the co-owner and director of Portella, which opened on the Spanish island a few weeks ago, on Valentine’s Day. “We just needed to enhance.” It’s a characteristically understated way of explaining the delicate, subtle approach to architecture and hospitality that went into the realization of the project.
Portella—which takes its name from one of the entrance gates to the medieval walled city—is the younger sibling of Barcelona’s beloved “home-tel” Casa Bonay. That project was the dream hotel and MBA project of Enrique’s sister, Inés Miró-Sans, whose resume includes an earlier stint at New York’s effortlessly cool Ace Hotel.
Back in her native Barcelona, she created a small but heartfelt bolt-hole that earned recognition on Condé Nast Traveller’s and Monocle’s top 100 lists. That success is part of what spurred Enrique to leave the business world—he had been the commercial director for a Spanish beer brand in Portugal—and manage food and beverage for Casa Bonay before getting his own MBA in hospitality management.
Despite all that business school training, they never lost sight of what makes a hotel feel like a home. And so, when the Portella opportunity came onto their radar in 2017, they listened to the architects who had perfected the details of Casa Bonay and made the most of the new possibilities in Mallorca. Enrique moved to the island to run it.
While most of Mallorca’s tourism has centered on the beaches and countryside—and still does, as upcoming openings from Four Seasons and Mandarin Oriental will attest—Palma was at the time beginning to undergo a renaissance of its own. It’s become a desirable urban destination, with a charming historic quarter, some stunning Gaudí architecture and high-quality restaurants.
The city was on its way to being ready for a discreet, understated urban hotel. And in fact, Portella is a return to the origins of the building, which was a sort of hostel in its earliest days. Later on, it became the home of Spanish figurative painter Joaquin Torrents Lladó, a contemporary of painter and sculptor Antoni Tàpies and poet Robert Graves. Lladó resided there until his death in 1993.
The hotel was designed inside and out by the respected Parisian studio Festen in collaboration with GRAS Reynés Architects, all with the goal of creating a “secret home rather than a trendy space.” It’s a place where simplicity seduces—the antidote to the Instagrammable everything of travel circa 2024 (yawn).
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