Pastoral Pleasures: Celebrating the Beauty of Spring
April 3, 2024 by Hidden Doorways
No matter where your clients call home, April is a time that stirs up the desire to travel so that the spring season can be taken in someplace breathtaking. While favoritism is largely frowned upon in the big wide world, we couldn’t help but handpick nine of the luxury destinations in which celebrating the season is best done with farm and garden experiences to get guests immersed in the gifts of the earth and singing the joys of spring.
The Full Farm Experience at Brush Creek Ranch
First up, farms, and we’re kicking things off with Wyoming’s finest resort, Brush Creek Ranch. With over 30,000 secluded acres to call their own, guests can expect to get hands-on at the working farm and all that comes out of it, from the bakehouse to the distillery. Book a full-day farm experience to go behind the scenes, sustainable cattle ranch and all, rounding the day off with a meal to remember with farm fine dining at the Cheyenne Club. Fancy a first-hand experience of crafting a seed-to-table supper? Join Brush Creek’s expert chefs for a cooking class and appreciate those ingredients further still by touring its capacious greenhouse to learn about germination, cultivation, and harvesting while sampling produce straight from the vine. One final must-sample while guests are on the farm is its award-winning cheeses at the farmstead creamery — the only Grade A goat dairy in the whole of Wyoming.
A Working Farm in Franklin at Southall
An apiary that’s home to four million honeybees and counting (producing the estate’s award-winning honey we hasten to add), terraced hand-toiled kitchen gardens (that nourish guests with heirloom vegetables), a colossal propagation greenhouse plus a bigger still hydroponic one (to balance traditional and modern practices on the farm), and an orchard with over a thousand apple trees growing 43 varieties (overlooking Lake Mishkin that also makes for a favored picnic spot) — and breathe. To land at Southall in Tennessee is to embrace Mother Nature in a big and beautiful way. They call themselves a farm of the future but with roots in the past, letting the land and its riches nurture guests while they protect the soils beneath and wildlife within in return so that they may thrive and flourish.
Home Farm Feasts at Heckfield Place
Heading to Hampshire in the UK next is five-star hotel and spa, Heckfield Place. With 400 acres on the estate, there’s plenty of space to fit in its celebrated Home Farm too. Hotel guests can wander down to Home Farm whenever they please, touring the biodynamic market garden and watching its herd of gentle Guernsey cows chew the cud, but an estate-to-plate cooking experience is how to truly immerse oneself with Heckfield’s self-sustaining relationship between the land and its magnificent house. Available on specific dates through spring and summer, join Head Chef of its Green Michelin-starred Marle restaurant, Frederick Page to pick farm-fresh produce which will be transformed into a three-course seasonal feast. Once the harvesting is done, Fred cooks and educates in the garden’s Glass House as guests enjoy a drink or two before a convivial long lunch is served deep in the historical walled garden.
Kuilima Farm Tour at Turtle Bay Resort
A place deeply connected to nature, Turtle Bay Resort‘s on-location farm doesn’t only sustain its team and guests but also the surrounding communities — it supplies more than 300 kg of produce every week with 70% of ingredients served to hotel guests being grown just one kilometer away. Take it all in by arranging for your clients the Kuilima Farm Tour where they’ll roam its 468 lush acres and learn about the region’s agriculture while picking their own ingredients to sample as they stroll. Because at Turtle Bay, there are extraordinary crops native to the North Shore that travelers can pluck straight from the earth or tree, from Mai’a (banana) to ‘Ulu (breadfruit) and Niu (coconut) to name a few. Like at Southall, there’s a hydroponics greenhouse (growing leafy greens and tomatoes) and a recently planted orchard to delight in too, but rather than apples, at Turtle Bay it’s citrus, avocado, lychee, papaya, and star fruit that hang heavy from abundant branches.
An Immersive Ecosystem at Herdade da Malhadinha Nova
Alentejo is a special place indeed with one of the lowest population densities in Europe where guests can find themselves in complete seclusion, serenity, and blissful silence at Herdade da Malhadinha Nova – a place where time stands still.
Extending across 1,500 acres is a landscape that Malhadinha Nova has nurtured to create a perfect ecosystem with flora such as holm oak wood, olive trees, wheat, oat, barley, and natural meadows and the introduction of diverse fauna like Alentejo cow, the Alentejo black pig, black and white Merina sheep and Lusitano horses. By taking care of its fertile soils, they can raise bumper organic crops and proudly serve their own wine, olive oil, honey, cereals, meats fruits, and vegetables. Ingredients so delectable combine with a culinary team so talented that in early 2024, Malhadinha received its first Green Michelin Star in a Michelin Guide ceremony dedicated exclusively to Portuguese gastronomy. The restaurant isn’t the only place to taste the fruits of the earth — picnic between the vineyards or aside the Terges River, and why not arrange the farm animal tour afterwards, an experience that is always a surefire hit, especially with whippersnapper travelers.
A Garden Unlike Any Other at Ellerman House
If you have clients keen to be at one with Mother Nature without necessarily wiling away the hours in greenhouses and paddocks, five-star resorts with gardens to die for should do the trick. First up, Cape Town’s Ellerman House where the slopes of Lion’s Head meet the Atlantic ticking off proximity to mountainous and ocean landscapes off the bat. The city is at the heart of what is known as the Cape Floral Kingdom where thousands of endemic species thrive — species you won’t find anywhere else in the world. At Ellerman, they celebrate that natural heritage with its very own indigenous oasis inspired by Cape Town’s world-renowned Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Guests can take in its luscious one-and-a-half acre site that features all things green and great from statuesque aloes from the Eastern Cape and succulents from the Karoo.
Perfumed Mediterranean Gardens at Finca Cortesin
Magnificently landscaped gardens are just as much of a promise over at southern Spain’s crown jewel destination, Finca Cortesin. One of the most tranquil enclaves on the Andalusia coast, here there is a 215-hectare site to guarantee guests a sense of complete seclusion, helped along by meandering walks through its 23,000 m² of perfumed Mediterranean gardens. Book into a Garden Suite to grant guests a private green space of their own with views that extend over the lawns and pergolas draped in weeping lilac wisteria, or simply sit and enjoy a morning coffee or early evening sundowner in any of its terraces where fountains, rose arches and millennial olive trees are always in plain sight.
A Secluded Garden Oasis at Villa Bokeh
How does a luxury hacienda in the heart of a six-acre garden on the lush outskirts of Guatemala sound? We thought as much. This colonial-style Antiguan getaway is nestled with a private garden so lush and peaceful that guests may wish they were sleeping in garden hammocks rather than a luxurious suite. Magically manicured and the largest garden landscape of any hotel in Antigua, one of the greatest features of Villa Bokeh‘s gardens is its multiple fountains providing a soothing trickling backdrop to the whole hacienda. Designed by Katy Jay in collaboration with Paliare Studio, the fountains bring together sophisticated architecture, Guatemalan Colonial Design, and modern details. By foot isn’t the only way to enjoy the gardens here though. Book clients the Notebook Experience and they can boat about its lagoon to take it all in by water.
A Garden Fit for a King at The Goring
We end in Britain’s capital city, London at the iconic Belgravia hotel, The Goring. Uncovering hidden gardens in any city feels like discovering buried treasure, and here, guests get to fall out of their feather-soft bed and into the floral oasis that is one of London’s most beautiful (and largest) private gardens. Breathtakingly snow-topped in winter and delicately scented in spring and summer, The Goring Garden features a recently planted bountiful border full of His Majesty The King’s favorite flowers and shrubs as a tribute to the new Sovereign – a sight to delight in over a pot of English Breakfast at High Tea served on the terrace. Sold!