In 2000, the Swiss hearing aid magnate Andreas Rihs bought his first French holiday home in an ancient forest in the Luberon, a violet valley of lavender and grapevines, honeycombed with abandoned ocher mines and embellished with medieval hilltop towns. The house was always so full of friends and fellow epicures, his son Tobias Rihs recalls, that when he and his brother wanted to visit, they had to book in advance, like at a hotel.
What’s a wine-loving, Tour de France team–sponsoring billionaire bon vivant to do when he outgrows his villa? Buy a village.
The elder Rihs purchased a nearby hamlet founded by Cistercian monks and its backwater winery, Domaine du Coquillade, in 2006. He sank millions into modernizing the winery, rehabilitating 42 acres of vineyards, building a world-class cycling center (he founded the Swiss BMC cycling brand), and restoring the original buildings to create a 63-key property, Coquillade Provence Resort & Spa, part of the Relais & Châteaux association of luxury resorts. Rated the best resort in France last year by Travel + Leisure, it’s an example of an albergo diffuso, a hotel in which rooms, restaurants, and amenities are spread throughout the restored relics of an abandoned or neglected town—usually far removed from the crowded tourist mainstays.
I arrived at Coquillade at golden hour on a cool May evening. A bubble-gum ripple traced the blue-green silhouette of the Luberon’s undulating hills, and “villagers” served Caladoc-Cinsault rosé and black-pepper-freckled sablés to a dozen guests seated around the town square. The sun went down and the wind picked up, pointing the tips of the cypress trees sideways like fingers directing us to dinner at the Art Deco Lalique Bar, where we dined on Thai curry and strawberries from the garden with geranium sorbet.
Tobias, an architect, and his brother, film director Oliver Rihs, found themselves accidental hoteliers when Andreas passed away in 2018 and they became stewards of Coquillade. They began infusing the resort with their philosophies on climate and art, converting the winery to biodynamic status, and hanging sublime modern pieces on the 11th-century walls. But they were wary of changing things too much, Tobias Rihs told Fortune: “This sensation of an old French village, that makes the place.”
That sensation, a feeling of connection to the past, is what’s drawing jaded travelers to accommodations like Coquillade (rooms from $820; buyouts of the entire property from $70,900) and other alberghi diffusi.
The term for this hospitality model was first officially applied, in 2002, to a row of sherbet-shaded townhouses on the Sardinian seafront. Now variations on the concept have spread, particularly in Europe, where deserted farming estates (such as Borgo San Felice Resort in Chianti) and derelict military housing ((Meneghetti Wine Hotel & Winery in Croatia’s Istrian Peninsula) have received retrofits for luxury travelers.
Alberghi diffusi sit at the intersection of several tourism trends: multigenerational travel, sustainability, cultural connection. And property buyouts have gained traction as more companies have distributed workforces and off-site corporate retreats have become key to cohesion and collaboration. Meanwhile, destination micro-weddings have exploded in popularity. Why rent the villa, goes the thinking, when you can take the town?
The trend has made its way to Japan, where the accrediting Italian National Alberghi Diffusi Association recently opened a bureau, and to the United States: Dunton Hot Springs (rooms from $960; buyouts from $38,000, all-inclusive) is an American take on the albergo diffuso in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest.
Wichita-based travel photographers Austin Mann and Esther Havens Mann did a buyout for family and friends when they booked their wedding at the resort. The couple were charmed by the story behind the place: a mining boomtown founded in 1895 that was abandoned in 1918 when the silver and gold dried up.
“When you rent the town, there’s no guests that don’t have a connection in some way,” Austin Mann told Fortune. “If you walk into the saloon, you have something to talk about.”
Dunton’s owners, Christoph Henkel and Katrin Bellinger, spent seven years restoring the ghost town, cabin by cabin. The general store became one of the resort’s 15 frontier-luxe guest cabins, with a private hot-spring pool; the forge became another. The town’s dance hall and saloon remain Dunton’s social hub, where guests congregate for icebreakers and boot-scootin’. One treat for history buffs: Butch Cassidy’s name carved into the saloon’s bar. The storied outlaw reportedly hid out in Dunton after a bank robbery in 1898.
“Anytime you’re looking for a unique experience as a traveler, the historical narrative plays an important role,” says Mann. “When you’re walking around, it feels like you’re in another century.”
With a customer base this enthusiastic about history, new construction can be a sticky issue, so proprietors tend to be thoughtful about additions. The Pony Express station converted into Dunton’s yoga studio and spa, for example, is not original to the town but was transported from Colorado Springs.
And at Coquillade, the Rihs family will debut a set of newly built suites with private pools overlooking the Syrah and Cinsault vineyards.
They’re impeccable, of course, but I still preferred my ivy-covered petite maison in the old part of the resort—a cozy puzzle of rooms with timber beams and white roses spilling out of stone planters. I’m not alone, it seems, in seeking that emotional je ne sais quoi.
“The guests really just want to stay in the old houses,” Rihs says. “There’s history there.”
This article appears in the August/September 2023 issue of Fortune with the headline, “I’ll take the whole town.”
