There were initially 24 rooms in the Tourrel d’Almeran family home, a 17th-century palais in the sun-drenched village of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. During the two years it took owners Margot Stängle, an architect, and communications and marketing professional Ralph Hüsgen to renovate the manor, the original rooms were transformed into seven ample suites. While it may seem like a long wait to create a small hotel, it was in fact the end of a much longer journey that landed the first-time hoteliers in the South of France. 

While working together on a project in Munich in 2009, Stängle and Hüsgen discovered that they shared a passion for food, wine, and design and decided to explore opening a hotel together. That same year they embarked on a 3,100-mile tour of France to find out where. “Ralph and I went on a three-week journey from the north to the south of France and visited important wine regions. Our final destination was Provence. Back home the idea of opening a hotel there solidified,” Stängle explains of the area that draws visitors with a bustling downtown, 300 days of sunshine a year, and a history of famous residents, including composer Charles Gounod and Vincent van Gogh.

The light and colors of the Provençal landscape inspired van Gogh to create more than 100 paintings in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, and it was a similar palette that Stängle used when developing Hôtel de Tourrel’s communal spaces, including in the restaurant, where “the interior design concept follows the colors of Provence: olive, green, blue, blue-gray, as well as warm yellow and orange tones,” says Stängle, who left the Mediterranean eatery’s walls as white as a gesso canvas and lined them with low chartreuse banquettes covered in velvet. A cluster of round tables and black rocking chairs are arranged to create an intimate space. 

White and café au lait tones reign in guestrooms, each with a unique layout and historical features. In suite Numero Trois, for example, Stängle uncovered a 400-year-old stone wall belonging to the adjacent museum building and left it exposed, lining it with furnishings in tangerine and steel blue. Numero Un features an approximately 14-foot-high ceiling of painted wood—an early element of the home that Stängle had restored—an ornate dome under which she positioned a king bed and a freestanding bathtub. A bespoke gray screen made of wood, fabric, and mirrors divides the room, separating the bathroom and sleeping area. Stängle used similar screens in other rooms such as Quatre, which features a stucco ceiling; and Deux, which boasts a circa-18th-century marble fireplace and two plush chairs in a lime green hue. 

In the hotel’s top-floor room, Numero Sept, guests find a mezzanine and private terrace offering vistas over the rooftops. A glass-encased tub and bathroom is located adjacent to the bed, and can be made private via sliding white curtains. All rooms include large bathrooms bedecked in Carrara marble or limestone.

On the first floor, with doors opening out onto the street, is the Hôtel de Tourrel wine bar. Bottle-laden shelves extend from the concrete floor to the top of high ceilings, and a long communal table in oak invites connoisseurs to sit down for a sip. On the menu are labels from all over France—some found on that fateful jaunt back in 2009. Stängle and Hüsgen now reside in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and are, according to Stängle, “living the dream.”