In our ongoing series, Millie Walton selects and explores the world’s best art hotels. In this edition, she ventures into the Tuscan wilderness to discover the art at Oasyhotel.
The road to Oasyhotel is steep and winding. If you’re arriving by car, hotel staff will meet you at the gates and transport you the rest of the way up the mountain. It’s a 20-minute drive to reception, and the higher you climb, the wilder the landscape becomes.
Sunlight dapples through a dense canopy of leaves that opens suddenly onto expansive views of the surrounding peaks. By the time you reach reception, it feels as though you’ve disappeared into another world. Hidden within a vast nature reserve, the hotel shares its address with wild boar, deer and wolves.
The Concept
Oasyhotel does luxury differently. The focus here is on the beauty and conservation of its extraordinary natural surroundings. Once a hunting lodge, the hotel is made up of a scattering of stone buildings and cabins tucked between the trees. Guests are given a map of walking and cycling routes on arrival, and experiences range from forest bathing to nature safaris, treasure hunts and art classes for children using natural pigments. The swimming pool floats in a lake where you can also paddleboard and canoe.
Image credit: Sam Rogers
The philosophy here is not just about admiring nature but learning how to better understand and protect it. Alongside guests, researchers regularly work within the reserve studying its wildlife, while Dynamo Camp runs free recreational programmes for children with serious chronic illnesses and their families. Many of the ingredients used in the restaurants are grown within the reserve using sustainable farming practices, while the OCA (the Oasy Contemporary Art & Architecture Centre) aims to connect visitors with their surroundings through exhibitions and installations by international artists and architects.
The Collection
OCA (the Oasy Contemporary Art & Architecture Centre)
While a handful of artworks are dotted around the hotel buildings, the true art experience begins at OCA. The contemporary art centre punches well above its weight thanks to art director Emanuele Montibeller’s ambitious vision, which pairs a seasonal programme of art exhibitions with permanent installations. Visitors must be accompanied by a guide on the art trail, and for good reason: this is more of a hike than a leisurely wander, especially challenging on our visit in thirty-degree heat with two children in tow. But it’s well worth the effort.
The works are buried deep within the forest, which continues to grow up, around and through them. Curved steel and carbon fibre structures by Kengo Kuma vibrate with the movement of the wind. At the same time, a pavilion by Italian architect Michele De Lucchi invites you to lie back on purpose-built wooden benches gazing up at the sky, and Alejandro Aravena’s concrete structure rises up from a tangle of wildflowers, offering a new viewpoint on the mountains. The trail currently takes around two hours to complete, with plans to expand it through new commissions over the coming years.
Quinze Ceramorphia 2026 at OCA Oasy Contemporary Art and Architecture. ©Mattia Marasco
Our visit coincided with an exhibition of vibrant, fizzing ‘garden’ paintings by Belgian artist Arne Quinze, who has also made a new installation for the trail, with the prototype sculptures also displayed in the gallery.
The Design Details
Materials take the lead at Oasyhotel. Raw stone, wood and organic textures create interiors that feel calm, understated, and entirely at home in their surroundings. We were especially taken with the design of OCA gallery, housed in a former stable barn, with soaring ceilings and exposed rafters providing a dramatic backdrop for contemporary art.
The Rooms
There are 17 cabins, each hidden down a stony path through the trees, giving guests the feeling of having their own private corner of the forest. Each morning we pushed open the big double doors and lay in bed gazing out across the surrounding mountains, listening to the birds and crickets.
At night, the darkness is almost absolute. It made for some of the best sleep we’ve had in a long time.
The Food & Drink
All meals are served at Le Felci, with tables on the terrace accompanied by the buzzing sounds of the forest. Food is simple but delicious – homemade granola, honey, preserves and bread at breakfast, while lunch and dinner make use of seasonal ingredients. The fresh pasta dishes are particularly memorable, especially when paired with a glass of Tuscan red. For lunch, you can also choose to picnic down by the lake where crispy tempura vegetables, dips, focaccia and little pots of fresh fruit and tiramisu arrive in a beautifully crafted wooden bento box. Or if you’re down at OCA, there’s Casa Luigi for Italian-style small plates.
Art in the Neighbourhood
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
To say that Oasyhotel is remote is something of an understatement; even the car park for visitors to OCA is a thirty-minute walk away from the gallery through the forest. If you’re craving an urban art fix, Florence is around 90 minutes away once you’ve descended the mountain. There, the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia offer a very different encounter with art, and Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is nearby too.
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