I'll Take the Whole Town

From a dilapidated winery in the Provençal hills to a boomtown gone bust in Colorado, alberghi diffusi are bringing abandoned or neglected towns back to life as luxe resorts.

- ADAM ERACE

IN 2000, the Swiss hearing aid magnate Andreas Rihs bought his first French holiday home in an ancient forest in the Luberon, a violet valley of lavender and grapevines, honeycombed with abandoned ocher mines and embellished with medieval hilltop towns. The house was always so full of friends and fellow epicures, his son Tobias Rihs recalls, that when he and his brother wanted to visit, they had to book in advance, like at a hotel.

What's a wine-loving, Tour de France team-sponsoring billionaire bon vivant to do when he outgrows his villa? Buy a village.

The elder Rihs purchased a nearby hamlet founded by Cistercian monks and its backwater winery, Domaine du Coquillade, in 2006. He sank millions into modernizing the winery, rehabilitating 42 acres of vineyards, building a world-class cycling center (he founded the Swiss BMC cycling brand), and restoring the original buildings to create a 63-key property, Coquillade Provence Resort & Spa, part of the Relais & Châteaux association of luxury resorts. Rated the best resort in France last year by Travel + Leisure, it's an example of an albergo diffuso, a hotel in which rooms, restaurants, and amenities are spread throughout the restored relics of an abandoned or neglected town-usually far removed from the crowded tourist mainstays.