This post was originally published on this site.
Location: Gardiner, New York
Why we love it: Take-home harvests, animal feedings, apiary tours
Step onto this picturesque Auberge Collection campus, in a meadow in the shadow of New York’s iconic Shawangunk Mountains, and you feel almost as if you’ve entered the world of a Hudson River School painting. It’s that pretty. And for all its comforts, which are considerable—the instant it opened its doors in 2022, it became the premier luxury escape in the Catskills—the hotel rightly recognizes that nature is its greatest amenity. Located on a 140-acre site that was once a tree nursery and a dairy farm, Wildflower leans into the region’s agricultural heritage with a working farm that supplies ingredients for cooking classes, the hotel’s progressive New American restaurant, Clay, and many of the treatments at the excellent spa, Thistle. Guests can swing by to tour the crops, feed the animals, and collect eggs from the chicken coop (to take home or pass along to the kitchen staff at Clay to prepare for breakfast). Just 4% of the property has been developed, leaving an extensive network of forest trails for visitors to explore on their own or to visit with a guide for ramp planting or forest-bathing experiences. And it’s easy to continue drinking in the beauty of the place from the 65 rooms, all freestanding cabins, cottages, and suites. In addition to offering fireplaces, well-curated minibars, and a stylishly warm, natural design aesthetic, they have extensive private terraces and floor-to-ceiling windows framing a view of woods, meadows, or mountains. —Jesse Ashlock
