Hotel Ur Bare, Zarautz review: a stylish surf retreat beside the Cantabrian sea

(Image credit: Photography by Enric Badrinas)

A stately 1940s villa in the Spanish coastal town of Zarautz is now a stylish, 13-bedroom boutique hotel with design that speaks to its natural environment in the Basque Country. Skirting the beach of this surfer town, Ur Bare overlooks the dramatic waves of the Cantabrian Sea, which can be enjoyed from a newly-built terrace.

Tour Hotel Ur Bare, Zarautz

Architect Beatriz Bergasa says she found various disparate structures and typologies in the three-storey property, which is positioned at the foothills of a vast woodland. ‘The building has access across different floors, which has been great for organising its functionality,’ she explains. ‘We’ve adapted each floor to give it a distinct use.’

Bergasa achieved the highest category of energy efficiency by installing triple-glazed windows made of low-emissivity, solar control glass and further insulating the stone walls. Original concrete pillars and beams remain throughout, many reinforced with iron brackets, and while the red ceramic tiles in the roof are new, they resemble the region’s vernacular architecture.

Typical Basque houses feature whitewashed facades but designer Ricard Trenchs – who worked on the 4-star hotel with two other Barcelona-based studios, Crude and Torndelacreu – deliberately avoided white in favour of warmer tones like beige, grey and brown. ‘We put neutral colours in the facade because we didn’t want it to stick out from the landscape,’ he explains.

The homely interiors feature sandy stucco walls and touches of wood and stone, with chairs from Heerenhuis, Poliform and Molteni&C and lighting by Santa & Cole. Pieces of industrial equipment are placed for rustic decoration, contrasting with the lacquered, russet red reception desk and a latticed wall installation made of 3D-printed clay pieces.

A magnolia tree rises through the lobby from its roots in Aiten Etxe restaurant downstairs, whose floor is laid with grey Arival stone tiles in concentric circles. Its menu celebrates the excellence of Basque produce and tradition, from sea nettles, rainbow trout and spider crab to stewed haricot beans with clams.

The pool area on the rooftop is staggered across three levels, mimicking the incline of the slope on which Ur Bare sits. The underground of the hotel includes a bodega with 240 wines and a sauna that also stores surfing equipment for guests eager to catch the waves.

Find Hotel Ur Bare at Elkano Kalea, 3, 20800 Zarautz, Gipuzkoa, Spain, urbarehotel.com

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Agnish Ray is a travel and culture writer based in Madrid. Aside from Wallpaper*, he covers Spain for publications like The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, Financial Times, Conde Nast Traveller, Sleeper, Elephant, Kinfolk and others. Agnish has also worked as a strategist in the arts sector and as an adjunct professor at IE School of Architecture and Design in Spain.