The best surf hotels · Cornwall
Hotel Tresanton
In 1998 Olga Polizzi bought a run-down former yacht club in St Mawes and spent two years restoring it — against the advice of everyone who told her she'd never make money in Cornwall. They were wrong. Tresanton became the hotel that changed what Cornish luxury looked like, and the Cornish tourism revival that followed is, in part, its doing. The property is a cluster of five whitewashed buildings stepping down the hillside above Tavern Beach — thirty rooms, each individually designed, each with a sea view, each different. The Pinuccia — an eight-metre classic Italian racing yacht — sits in the harbour and goes out with guests when the weather allows. One superfan has made thirty-four return visits.
We may earn a commission if you book via this link.
The hotel
The Design
Thirty rooms across five whitewashed buildings. Each one different. Olga Polizzi says it's never finished — she keeps buying new Cornish art. That is the correct approach.
Polizzi's signature is the absence of a signature — no consistent room type, no corporate logic. Period antiques alongside contemporary pieces, bathroom-floor mosaics, tongue-and-groove construction, Cornish art commissioned specifically for the property. The restaurant terrace is the social heart: mosaic floor, pelargoniums, the water in front of it.
The Design
Thirty rooms across five whitewashed buildings. Each one different. Olga Polizzi says it's never finished — she keeps buying new Cornish art. That is the correct approach.
Polizzi's signature is the absence of a signature — no consistent room type, no corporate logic. Period antiques alongside contemporary pieces, bathroom-floor mosaics, tongue-and-groove construction, Cornish art commissioned specifically for the property. The restaurant terrace is the social heart: mosaic floor, pelargoniums, the water in front of it.
