Call it the year of the visionary: The best of 2025’s five-star debuts have proudly singular points of view. That’s because many of them are passion projects driven by hands-on owners, each creating the kind of property they themselves would want to visit.
Take philanthropist Denise Dupré, who’s behind France’s Château de la Commaraine. There’s a dearth of high-end accommodations in this part of Burgundy, which she has resolved to change by transforming this castle, parts of which date to 1112 C.E., into a 37-room hotel. When completed, it will host a spa and two restaurants that serve the biodynamic wines now produced by the surrounding estate. Travel specialist Jules Maury of Scott Dunn Private calls it a game changer and has already started booking clients for the opening in late 2025.
Then there’s jewelry designer Thelma West and her partner, former Apple exec Stefano Liotta, whose Casina Cinquepozzi will reimagine an 18th-century farmhouse in Italy’s heel. “It’s near Putignano, Puglia’s best-kept secret,” says Black Tomato’s Sunil Metcalfe of the 10-room hotel, which has a decidedly “breezy, coastal-Italian touch.” Not to be outdone, the couple are also bottling their own organic rosé and will host guest chefs and other creatives in an on-site artist’s residence flat.
One of 37 guest rooms at Burgundy’s 912-year-old Château de la Commaraine.
John Athimaritis/Courtesy of Château de la Commaraine
On Indonesia’s secluded Rote Island, a two-hour flight from Bali, entrepreneur Chris Burch is opening a sister property to his acclaimed Nihi Sumba, which will be overseen by hotelier James McBride. The new escape “is going to focus again on two things: world-class surfing and privacy,” says John Clifford, of International Travel Management. “No expense has been spared,” Metcalfe adds. “Nihi excels at splendid isolation.”
But it’s not just individuals crafting exciting new hotels. Family-owned groups are on the upswing, too. Malta’s Pisani clan is aggressively expanding its Corinthia chain, whose original property opened in Attard in 1968. The most anticipated of the new sites is the Corinthia Bucharest, a 30-suite property that blows the dust off the historic, but faded, Grand Hotel du Boulevard. “Romania is long overdue a renaissance,” Metcalfe says. Black Tomato has just launched its first itinerary in the country, and this property will be a fixture on it.
Active groups will enjoy Australia’s two-square-mile Hamilton Island, which the Oatley family has owned since 2003. In August, guests can start checking in to the 59-room Sundays, which Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell of Cazenove & Loyd calls “a great luxury option for families who are into scuba diving, snorkeling, and whale watching.”
In Spain, the Madera Fernandez family has been busy building the Vestige Collection, which infuses significant historical sites with thoughtful panache. Its latest project, Son Ermitá & Binidufá, is on the upscale island of Minorca. The estate unites two old farms—one at the top of a hill, the other in a lush valley—into a single 22-room property. Maury predicts that as Majorca becomes overrun with international chains, the appeal of such agrarian retreats will only increase.
In Germany, the Oetker family is reviving its own sylvan stay: Baden-Baden’s Brenners Park, close to the Black Forest, which has been a fixture of this spa town since the 1870s. “It’s going to turn heads, and for good reasons,” Metcalfe says, noting it’s “fresh off a needed facelift.” The same clan is also behind one of the most anticipated openings stateside. In partnership with Rueben Brothers, which purchased the Chesterfield in Palm Beach in 2022, Oetker will manage the renovated property, now called the Vineta, when it opens in early 2025. The name is a nod to its original moniker and coordinating roaring-twenties aesthetic: It debuted as the Lido-Venice in 1926. “The Vineta is going to fill the space of chic nostalgia in a place where there is none,” says Maury.
Meanwhile, One&Only will make its U.S. debut in Big Sky, Mont., at Moonlight Basin, a 190-acre resort that shares a name with a local community. Primed to appeal to Yellowstone fans, it will be open year-round, with a summertime focus on mountain biking, hiking, and fly-fishing. When there’s snow, it will offer gondola access to the Madison Base for skiing.
One&Only’s Moonlight Basin, in Big Sky, Mont., will be its first property stateside.
Courtesy of One&Only Resorts
If you’d rather be on a yacht, there are plenty of developments in the cruise space. Aqua Expeditions owner Francesco Galli Zugaro, known for exclusive tours of Asia and South America, will launch a new African route around the Seychelles and Tanzania in December. Silversea is planning a 150-room hotel—ready for the winter 2025 season—in the world’s southernmost town, Puerto Williams, Chile, to make its trips to Antarctica more comfortable. Yet Wilmot-Sitwell claims the more exciting opening is from an under-the-radar luxury operator, Kazazian, whose modernist all-white boats are the sleekest way to experience the Nile. It’s planning a nine-room hotel on 280 acres in western Egypt’s Siwa Oasis, closer to Libya than to Cairo. It will have its own helipad, and the local airport will offer hour-long flights to and from the capital. “The land is an ancient seabed, and the hotel will be constructed using ancient white coral from the local area,” Wilmot-Sitwell says. What makes it worth the trip? “It will be one of the most exclusive hotels in Egypt.”
