Great estate escapes

Developer David Stein owns over a dozen hotels, but his Mallorca property, Son Net, was never meant to be shared with paying guests. "I started doing a lot of business in Europe and grew tired of living out of a suitcase," he says. When he found this inland, 17th-century finca in 1991, "I fell in love," he says.

Around the same time, his son fell in love too--with a Mallorcan. Suddenly it seemed as if there was nowhere in Europe Stein would rather be. "Renovating the place seemed a challenging and exciting way to become part of the fabric of the community," he says. "But frankly we just weren't using it enough, and here I had this spectacular site and great staff."

The salmon-colored, Mediterranean-style home, which offers panoramic views of mountains and orange and lemon trees, is arranged around a flower-filled central courtyard. Visitors have the run of private cabanas, a 100-foot swimming pool, and miles of mountain-biking trails. Stein keeps some of his most prized possessions at Son Net, including his formidable collection of modern art, with works by Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Marc Chagall, and David Hockney.

Guests who come in the summer can sometimes rent out Stein's private wing, built, he explains, "when I realized I was going to have grandchildren."

Puigpunyent, Mallorca, Spain
31 rooms, from $545 to $2,545 a night
sonnet.es