Ona Purobeach Resort Santa Ponsa MALLORCA Puro Group’s first hybrid hotel and beach club offers a fluid take on Mediterranean cuisine with an abundance of island produce at its heart. Words: Hannah Currie • Photography: Courtesy of Puro Group
W
hen Swedish entrepreneur Mats Wahlström
treated as a replica of the original. In Palma, the portfolio now
opened Purohotel in 2004, the term digital
includes Palacio Can Marqués, Grand Luxe by Puro and the
nomad had been coined only a few years earlier,
newly unified Puro Grand Hotel, which brings together the
while the lifestyle it described – one shaped by remote
former Puro Hotel Oasis Urbano and Puro Grand Hotel across
work and the ability to combine travel with everyday life
three neighbouring historic palaces. Most of the properties
– remained far from mainstream. Against this backdrop,
have access to a nearby Purobeach, with clubs in Illetas and
Wahlström took on a dilapidated 18th-century palace in La
Palma in Mallorca, Menorca, Barcelona and Vilamoura in the
Lonja, Palma de Mallorca, spending six years transforming
Algarve, alongside recently opened Purobeach Poreč. While
it into a cosmopolitan, design-led retreat that combined
its geographies have widened, the philosophy has remained:
relaxed luxury and Mediterranean influences with music,
food, drinks, music and wellness, brought together under
gastronomy and wellness. Authentically reflective of the
the easy sociability of Mediterranean living, or what Puro
founder’s own itinérance, the concept proved an instant hit,
describes as its ‘Oasis of Happiness’.
attracting a following of what Puro Group would come to
Now led by Spanish CEO Beltrán Álvarez de Estrada,
call its ‘nomads’ – guests drawn to the Balearics’ barefoot
the group has recently returned to home turf with a new
lifestyle mixed with Wahlström’s international outlook.
proposition. Perched above Santa Ponsa in the municipality
A year later, Purobeach Palma followed, opening on a
of Calvià, which is itself undergoing a major shift from
small private peninsula beyond the city. With a restaurant,
mass-market tourism towards a high-quality, sustainable
terrace and pool carved from the area’s black volcanic rock
model, Purobeach Resort Santa Ponsa brings together both
and 180-degree views across the sea, it extended the Puro
sides of the Puro brand for the first time, combining the
world beyond the hotel experience and established a format
energy of the beach club with the infrastructure of a full-
that would become central to the brand – think Balinese
service resort. To do so, the former Hotel Club Santa Ponsa
daybeds, DJs spinning chill-out and house beats, massages
has been transformed into a 160-key resort by Palma-based
by the sea and healthy international cuisine.
CMV Architects, with the studio tasked with retaining the
More than two decades on, it has evolved into a broader lifestyle collection spanning Spain, Portugal and Croatia, with each property shaped by its surroundings rather than
084
bones of the original property while adapting it to a new brand identity and model. “The intervention respects the building’s architecture,