Homes Away From Home: Lodges

There’s something to be said for hotels that combine the comforts of home with a stunning wilderness site. Here are five of our favorite such lodges, located around the world.

Southern Ocean Lodge, Australia

Located on sparsely populated Kangaroo Island, just thirty minutes from Adelaide, Southern Ocean Lodge is a model of sustainable luxury. Owners James and Hayley Baillie built the ecofriendly hotel on just 1 percent of the island’s total acres, leaving plenty of untouched habitat for the indigenous flora, fauna and wildlife.

• Accommodations: Twenty-one suites
• Amenities: Views of sea lion colonies, beach fishing, hiking, nocturnal tours, kayaking, food tours, spa treatments

Singular Patagonia, Chile

is housed in a former cold-storage plant, and elements of its past – a Victorian engine room, tannery – are still on display. Families flock to the Singular because it is conveniently located just outside of Puerto Natales, Chile, and offers excursions suitable for children too young for serious trekking. The decor is minimalist enlivened with such traditional Chilean accents such as wooden writing desks, oversized armchairs and historic photos of Patagonia explorers.

• Accommodations: Fifty-seven
• Activities: Excursions in Torres del Paine national park, fly-fishing, paddle boarding through fjords, sailing, cave trekking

Twin Farms, Vermont

With its vaulted, beamed ceilings, walls of well-thumbed books, fascinating artwork and hand-picked antiques, Twin Farms was clearly once a beloved private home—the former estate, as it happens, of Nobel Prize–winning author Sinclair Lewis and his wife, journalist Dorothy Thompson, who lived there in the 1920s. Today, the 18th-century main house, where guests take their cocktails and meals, is still the heart of the 300-acre property, which is a romantic, adults-only retreat (Twin Farms accepts children under 16 only during its two Family Weeks).

• Accommodations: Four rooms, six suites, ten cottages
• Activities: Skiing, ice-skating, hiking, canoeing, spa treatments

Blanket Bay, New Zealand

When American couple Tom and Pauline Tusher purchased the Blanket Bay property in the 1970s, they figured they might one day build a vacation cabin there for fly-fishing. But after Tom retired from running Levi Strauss, their simple cabin grew into a grand lodge, which they opened as a luxury hotel in the 1990s. The decor recalls the American West, with fishing-knot-printed fabrics and duck decoys creating the feeling that you’re in someone’s home.

• Accommodations: Thirteen
• Activities: Heli-fishing, hiking, horseback riding, kayaking, spa treatments

Casa de Uco, Argentina

Family-owned and -operated, Casa de Uco sits on 800 lush acres—nearly 200 of which are vineyards—in the Uco Valley, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Surrounded by serene lagoons, the eco-friendly hotel is an architectural marvel, made of sustainable natural materials and boasting a rooftop garden that doubles as an open-air observatory.

• Accommodations: Sixteen
• Amenities: Wine tastings, tennis, hiking, horseback riding, spa treatments