At Borgo Santo Pietro, a Working Tuscan Farm Meets the Height of Sustainable Luxury

If this appears to be paradise, it certainly feels like it once you’re there. And not just for the luxurious trappings of its accommodation, which consist of 22 individually decorated rooms and suites. While the comparisons to the feudal agriculture of medieval Tuscany may feel superficially apt, the true dynamic is far more democratic; the hotel is very much integrated with its local community, thanks to the many locals who work in and around the 230-acre estate, which includes an organic farm, vineyards, a dairy, a skincare laboratory, and 13 acres of gardens. Drawing on the rich history of craftsmanship specific to the area—a field of alpacas, for example, provide wool for blankets and shawls found around the hotel—it’s a vision of hyper-local sustainability that manages also to be palpably luxurious.

For this, it’s the hotel’s owners who are responsible, the Danish couple Jeanette and Claus Thottrup. (Indeed, the story of Borgo Santo Pietro is really the story of the Thottrups, and their love for the rural Tuscan community with which they’ve found an unlikely symbiosis.) On the hunt for a family home in Tuscany back in 2001, they came across the 13th-century estate in a state of total disrepair. After purchasing the property as a summer retreat, Jeanette was on a solo trip when she realized the potential it could have as a leading hotel; a quick phone call to Claus, and the decision was done.