Mallorca, Three Ways — and Menorca Once
A townhouse in Santanyí, an estate in the hills near Artà, a house for people who want to move — and on the neighbouring island a farm that shows what Mallorca once was.
Mallorca has been misunderstood for fifty years, and the misunderstanding keeps the wrong people away. The island we mean lies away from the south coast: in the centres of the small towns, in the hills of the north-east, in fincas built before television advertising.
Three houses, three ways of living Mallorca. And a short crossing.
Can Ferrereta: the palace in the village
Santanyí in the south-east is a small town of golden sandstone, with a market on Saturdays and coves twenty minutes away. Can Ferrereta is a 17th-century manor in the middle of it, opened as a hotel in 2020: 32 rooms around gardens and patios, a spa with indoor pool and hammam, an art collection nobody explains to you, and the restaurant OCRE on the terrace.
It's the house for people who want to live in a village — baker, bar and plaza — and sleep behind thick walls.
Es Racó d'Artà: the estate
In the far north-east, in the hills above Artà, lie 185 hectares where two Mallorcans have turned an old estate into a place for doing nothing: eight suites in the main house, 21 casitas and two houses with pools spread across the grounds, a spa, yoga, walking trails that begin and end on the finca.
The textiles in the house refer to the island's weaving; the kitchen to the garden. Es Racó isn't a hotel where you plan excursions. You stay on the land and let the days dissolve.
Aethos: the house for moving
Aethos Mallorca doesn't position itself as a beach resort, and that's the point. It's a house for people who want to run, cycle or swim in the morning and eat well in the evening — with the Tramuntana as terrain and a team that knows the routes. The Mallorca of cyclists, mountain walkers, early risers.
You stay well, eat well, and aren't there during the day. For many that's the right island.
And Menorca: Son Blanc
Half an hour's flight or a night's ferry away lies Menorca, the island Mallorca didn't want to be: biosphere reserve, no coastal road, coves you walk to. Near Alaior, an old lloc — one of the island's white farmsteads — has become Son Blanc: fourteen rooms, its own garden, its own kitchen, the beaches of the south twenty minutes away.
Son Blanc is the Mallorca that existed before 1960. You have to change islands for it.
Practical
Palma is under an hour from all three houses. Best time: May and October — empty, cheaper, mild light. For Menorca take the ferry from Alcúdia (one hour) or the flight from Palma (thirty minutes).
