In the Puglian manor

There’s no shortage of masserie--turned-hotels in Puglia. Up and down its twin coasts and in the hills of the interior, the traditional 16th- and 17th-century fortified manors have been bought up by Romans and Milanese – and Swiss, and British, and Australians (the particularly dense concentration of the latter in the Valle d’Itria, below Ostuni, has earned the area the nickname “Kangaroo Valley”). A Munich-based husband and wife are the designers and hoteliers behind Masseria Calderisi, which opened in late spring a few miles below Monopoli, and is a few minutes’ drive from the Adriatic. It’s easy to allocate any such new entry to the “so far, so same-y” category: a main house of warm, light tuffo stone, internal courtyard, ceramics from the local villages (Enza Fasano, check). But Calderisi’s 24 rooms and suites are unusually spacious, and mix the expected with nice pops of elevated style (some satisfyingly heavy French linen; beautiful brass door and cabinet fittings salvaged from a foundry in the northern city of Brescia). A couple of outbuildings have been converted into blocks of suites, while another was purpose-built to hold more; all have private enclosed patios, and together they lend themselves nicely to groups (the standalone Il Fortino suite, secreted away in an olive grove with its own pool and outdoor shower, lends itself instead to supreme privacy). Expect Calderisi’s other attributes to deliver on the Puglia fantasy: an 18m pool, a chef who bakes all the breads and pizzas on site, and a private beach club, serviced several times a day by a shuttle if you don’t have a car. masseriacalderisi.com, from €380

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