Das Kranzbach

Mary Isabel Portman, an English heiress studying music in Leipzig, bought a meadow above Klais in 1913 and commissioned the Arts and Crafts architects Detmar Blow and Ferdinand Billerey to build her a country house with its own concert hall. War intervened and she never lived in it. After decades as a church holiday home the house reopened in 2007 as a wellness hotel, with the London designer Ilse Crawford in charge of the interiors of the Mary Portman House and a new garden wing sunk into the hillside so that its rooms open onto south-facing balconies.

The hotel stands alone on a plateau at 1,000 metres, with 130,000 square metres of alpine meadow around it, no through road and the Wetterstein range as a backdrop. It calls itself adults only and does not take families with children under 12; extended half board is included, and the house is run for couples, friends and solo guests who want silence rather than entertainment. The Wellness and Nature Spa has five pools indoors and out, nine saunas and steam baths, a bathing house reached over a bridge of wood and glass, and a sauna area reserved for women.

In the forest above the treehouse stands a meditation pavilion by Kengo Kuma, clad in 1,550 pieces of silver fir; guests can rent it privately for two hours. Dogs are welcome in 17 rooms with direct access to their own meadow, and a combined heat and power plant with a photovoltaic system supplies about 80 per cent of the electricity.