There’s something to be said for checking into one of the world’s iconic hotels and simply staying there. Before every vacation came with a packed itinerary, travelers checked in for a week — sometimes longer — and made the hotel the destination.
Many of those hotels are still around. From the Bahamas and Jamaica to the French Riviera and Tuscany, they’re places with real history, shaped by the writers, artists, actors and jet-set social figures who stayed there — and, in some cases, helped make them famous.
Start in Eleuthera, where The Potlatch Club became an exclusive retreat in the 1960s, drawing guests including Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo and Raymond Burr. Paul and Linda McCartney honeymooned here in 1969. After falling into disrepair for decades, the property was restored and reopened in 2024, keeping its small scale and original character. There are just 11 accommodations set among tropical gardens along a stretch of pink-sand beach.
Round Hill Hotel & Villas in Jamaica has been doing its thing for more than 70 years. Opened in 1953 on a former pineapple plantation outside Montego Bay, it attracted Noël Coward, John and Jackie Kennedy and Babe and Bill Paley, among many others. Ralph Lauren eventually went from regular guest to homeowner and later redesigned the hotel’s oceanfront rooms. For all that history, Round Hill doesn’t feel particularly concerned with reminding you of it. Like the best iconic hotels, it remains private, low-key and very beautiful.
Not far away, GoldenEye has a different claim to fame. Ian Fleming bought the property in Oracabessa after serving in British naval intelligence during World War II, named it GoldenEye and wrote his James Bond novels there. Island Records founder Chris Blackwell later bought the estate and eventually developed it into a hotel. Fleming’s original villa remains, joined by cottages, beach huts and villas spread around the lagoon and coastline.
Across the Atlantic, the South of France has its own very good case for leaving the itinerary at home.
Sara and Gerald Murphy arrived on the Riviera in the early 1920s, when wealthy travelers generally visited during winter. The American couple began spending summers around Antibes instead and eventually made Villa America in Cap d’Antibes their home. Their friends included F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Cole Porter, and their days were filled with swimming, picnics, lunches and people coming and going from the house. In many ways, the Murphys helped establish the idea of summer on the Riviera that still exists today.
That history is closely tied to Hôtel Belles Rives in Juan-les-Pins. The Fitzgeralds first came to Cap d’Antibes in 1925 and later moved into the waterfront Villa Saint-Louis, which would eventually become Belles Rives. Fitzgerald began work on Tender Is the Night there, drawing on the people and places around him.
Today, Belles Rives still sits directly on the water, with its Art Deco interiors, terrace and private beach. Lunch can be followed by a swim from the pontoon, and there is very little reason to rush off anywhere else.
In Tuscany, Hotel Il Pellicano has its own long history with the international set. Opened in 1965 by British aviator Michael Graham and American socialite Patsy Daszel, it quickly attracted actors, artists and aristocrats to its secluded spot on the Argentario coast. Slim Aarons photographed the hotel and its guests, creating some of the images that still define Il Pellicano today. The hotel has naturally changed over the decades, but the rocky swimming platform, blue water and sense of privacy remain.
Mallorca’s Cala Sant Vicenç has a similar appeal. El Vicenç de la Mar itself is new — it opened in 2022 — but its location on the island’s quieter northern coast has long attracted travelers and artists. Set between the Serra de Tramuntana and the sea, the hotel is steps from Cala Molins and works particularly well if the plan is to see less of Mallorca rather than more.
And then there is Palm Springs. Long before Coachella, the desert was a Hollywood getaway, and the Parker Palm Springs has been part of that history in various forms. Gene Autry bought the property in 1961 and renamed it Melody Ranch; today, Jonathan Adler is responsible for its colorful interiors. Slim Aarons photographed Palm Springs extensively, though not the Parker itself, documenting the poolside world that made the desert famous.
None of this requires dressing like Jackie Kennedy or spending a week pretending it’s 1965. The appeal of these hotels is that their history is already there. You can check in, unpack and enjoy them exactly as they are.
And maybe stay an extra day.
