Stone, thatch and manor houses: hotels with a story

Many of the island’s hotels resemble one another, and that is no criticism: the same materials, the same climate and the same lagoon produce similar answers. A few, however, can be recognised at first glance, because they are built on a historic site, because they shelter a national monument, or because an architect and a designer have given them a signature.

The seven hotels that follow each have a story or an architecture to tell. Some carry the memory of the French colonial period, others that of fishing pirogues or plantation houses; another owes its signature to an architect and a couturier one does not expect beside a lagoon.

At Pointe aux Canonniers, five kilometres from Grand Baie, the Canonnier occupies a peninsula steeped in history. Its tropical garden of some twenty arpents is dotted with remains, among them an old fortification and its cannons, and two eighteenth-century cannons adorn the terraces of the Navigator, a fish restaurant set in a colonial house at the tip of the peninsula.

The spa extends this singularity: six massage cabins built on staggered levels in the branches of a two-hundred-year-old banyan, in thatch, ravenala and wood, reached by stone steps. In the evening, local artists perform in a small amphitheatre opening onto the Planteur Bar, in the middle of a coconut grove.

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Maritim Resort & Spa Mauritius

★★★★★BalaclavaSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

At Balaclava, on the north-west coast, the Maritim occupies twenty-five hectares beside the Baie aux Tortues, the island’s first national marine park. The estate holds the ruins of Balaclava, an eighteenth-century national monument, and giant tortoises live in the grounds.

The spa, the Maritim Tropical Flower Spa, spreads over three thousand five hundred square metres of gardens, with a waterfall, a pond and a relaxation area beneath the cascade; its products are drawn from local plants. The hotel also has its own nine-hole golf course within the grounds.

At Bel Ombre, on the south coast, the architecture of Le Telfair takes after the French plantation houses, and the hotel bears the name of Charles Telfair, the Irish naturalist who lived on these lands in the nineteenth century. Its one hundred and fifty-eight suites, of fifty-four to one hundred and four square metres, all come with a butler service.

The hotel lies at the heart of an estate of two thousand five hundred hectares, and its guests have access to the Château de Bel Ombre, a fine-dining restaurant set in a nineteenth-century mansion. In the evening, the Cavendish Bar & Lounge plays piano bar, with its library, its billiard table and its old Mauritian rums.

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SO/ Sofitel Mauritius

★★★★★Bel OmbreSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

Also at Bel Ombre, the SO/ Sofitel consists of ninety-two suites and villas designed by the architect Lek Bunnag, who lets spaces flow from inside to out. The decorative pieces were created for the hotel by the couturier Kenzo Takada, inspired by the hibiscus flower, and give the house its range of colours.

Every unit has its private garden, terrace, patio and outdoor shower, with access to the beach through the tropical gardens. At the Takamaka Riverside, facing the lagoon and the Jacotet river, chef’s tables of Mauritian cooking are held regularly in the evening.

In a coconut grove at Wolmar, in Flic en Flac, La Pirogue takes its name from its architecture: its two hundred and forty-eight units are single-storey bungalows and pavilions under thatched roofs inspired by fishing pirogues, with high pitched ceilings, Mauritian furniture and works by local artists.

The kitchen shows the same loyalty to place. Magenta, facing the lagoon and Le Morne mountain, explores the culinary heritage of Mauritius, Rodrigues and Réunion, and the Van Der Stel wine bar pours sixty wines on tap, with a sommelier to advise.

On Turtle Bay, at Pointe aux Piments, The Oberoi spreads across eight hectares of subtropical gardens. All its accommodation lies under traditional thatch, furnished with handmade pieces in natural materials and hung with works by local artists.

Above all, the hotel keeps The Gunpowder Room, an eighteenth-century Mauritian national monument from the French colonial era: stone walls and floors, old casks and chandeliers, set aside for private dinners. A few steps away, On the Rocks sets its tables on the black volcanic rocks rising from the ocean, and the complimentary Touching Senses programme ranges from stargazing to rum tasting.

At Wolmar, Sugar Beach is arranged around a manor house in a colonial style, and its two hundred and thirty-eight rooms and suites all have a balcony or terrace facing the ocean or the gardens. Open-air cinema is held on the manor lawn.

The hotel has its own workshops, for glass-blowing and perfume-making, and The Matcha Room tea salon, in the lobby, serves teas from all over the world. These seven houses are a reminder that in Mauritius the beach is not everything: stones, thatched roofs and the names that go with them tell the island’s story too.