Prunner Luxury Suites - Adults Only

Seven Rooms Above the Vineyards of Merano

Schenna is not one village but seven, strung up the slope above Merano from six hundred metres, where palms and cypresses still grow, to Videgg at more than fifteen hundred. Prunner Luxury Suites sits low on that slope, on Via Schenna, in the belt of vines and orchards. It is a small house by any measure: seven rooms, six of them suites, one double. What it spends its space on is obvious the moment you look up, because the roof is given over to an infinity pool of warm salt water and a deck of loungers facing the mountains.

Why It Works

A seven-room house has to be exact, and this one is. Suites run from fifty-five to ninety square metres, which is apartment scale rather than hotel scale, and they are furnished to order rather than to catalogue, with natural wood floors, frameless windows and Gessi fittings in the bathrooms. Some categories add an infrared cabin of their own. The adults-only rule, set at fourteen, is what holds it together: with seven rooms and a rooftop pool, one loud afternoon would undo the entire proposition, and the house has simply removed the possibility.

Why This Location

Six hundred metres is the sweet spot on this slope. You are above Merano and its promenades, close enough to be in town for dinner, and high enough that the summer heat of the valley floor stops short of you. Schenna Castle and the mausoleum of Archduke Johann stand within the village, a reminder that the Habsburgs summered here for the same reasons visitors come now. Five cableways and two chairlifts lift walkers off the slope, including toward the Meran 2000 plateau, and the old irrigation channels give the gentlest walks in South Tyrol, level paths cut for water rather than for hikers. Around all of it, roughly eight hundred thousand fruit trees.

Fast Facts

• Price: €€€€

• Vibe: Adults only, design-led, small, quiet, panoramic

• Rooms: Seven in all, six suites of 55 to 90 m2 and one double of 35 m2, custom furniture, natural wood floors, Gessi bathrooms, infrared cabin in some categories

• Best For: Couples, design travellers, walkers who want a base rather than a resort

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The rooftop infinity pool filled with warm salt water, level with the vines

• Dining: Organic and regional breakfast buffet prepared fresh each morning, restaurant on site, the village and Merano for the evening

• Amenities: Rooftop infinity pool, 100 m2 Sky Spa with sauna and relaxation room, Zerobody floating treatment, guided hikes and bike tours with the owners, step-free access, pets welcome

• Attractions: Schenna Castle and the mausoleum of Archduke Johann, Meran 2000, the irrigation channel walks, Merano and its promenades, the Passeier valley

Suites Measured in Tens of Square Metres

The smallest room in the house is thirty-five square metres, and it is the only one that is not a suite. Above it, the six suites run from fifty-five to ninety, which changes what a stay feels like: there is a place to sit that is not the bed, and a place to stand at the window that is not a corridor. The furniture is made for the rooms rather than bought for them, and the windows are set without frames so that nothing interrupts the slope. Rainfall showers in some categories, private infrared cabins in others.

A Sky Spa of a Hundred Square Metres

The wellness floor is small on purpose and sits under the roof with the pool. A sauna, a relaxation room and a treatment list that includes the Zerobody floating experience, which suspends you over warm water without getting you wet. With seven rooms in the house, the practical effect is that the spa is usually yours. The salt water pool outside stays warm, which extends its season well past the point where an unheated one would close.

Breakfast, and the Owners Who Take You Out

The buffet is put together each morning from organic and regional producers, which in this valley means the orchards and vineyards you can see from the terrace. Beyond breakfast the house keeps its ambitions modest and points you to the village and to Merano. What it does add is time: the owners lead guided hikes and bike tours, which is how a seven-room hotel gives you a valley rather than just a room in it.