Forty-five minutes northwest of the buzzy beach town of Punta del Este, Uruguay rests the Sierra de Carapé hill range, home to the peaceful Sacromonte Crafted Wines and Landscape Hotel. Surrounded by more than 250 acres of Maldonado’s fertile land, the hotel, which opened in December, boasts a boutique vineyard that will yield 40,000 bottles a year with grapes imported from France.
Designed by Uruguay- and Brazil-based architects MAPA, Sacromonte is made up of four 645-square-foot modular prefab structures that are outfitted with private terraces, plunge pools, and gardens. (Nine smaller versions are in the works.) Each melds steel frames with supporting walls that are built onsite with local stones. “One side is clad in a one-way mirrored window that reflects the landscape,” says MAPA partner Andrés Gobba. “The other is made of different-sized cut logs that are stacked together to create a nearly 15-inch-thick wall.”
Sacromonte’s single-most alluring feature is its environs. A dizzying maze of grasslands, streams, and natural spring water reservoirs juxtapose architectural elements like oversized kaleidoscopes prefabricated in cross-laminated timber and a serene chapel that rests high on a cliff, creating an idyllic setting for meditation. Assembled in one day, the chapel’s highlight is an austere floating box, fashioned from steel and translucent onyx, that is home to a statue of Virgin La Carrodilla, the patron saint of vineyards.
Amplifying the bucolic property’s experience is the alfresco restaurant and its 40-foot-long table crafted from a single piece of cross-laminated timber that is laid upon marble stones found at the quarry that was once a part of the land the hotel sits on. Gubba explains that the idea is to only “use what is necessary for a complete hospitality experience,” and, with time, everything else will eventually fall into place. “People want to get away from routine, escape the city, and reconnect with nature,” he says. “The idea was that guests become new primitive explorers here, looking for a simple life.”