FORESTIS Europe – South Europe – Italy
Raw nature, refined simplicity & endless alpine horizons
Opened in 2020 on the Plose mountain above Brixen at eighteen hundred metres, in a location that the Austro-Hungarian Empire once identified as a natural sanatorium – so pure was its spring water, so exceptional its alpine air, so generous its sun – FORESTIS was conceived by Teresa & Stefan Hinteregger as an act of sustained devotion to the landscape of their childhood & to the ancient Celtic wisdom that recognised this forest as a place of power long before any building rose within it. The architecture makes that devotion visible: a heritage-listed building from 1912, weather-silvered & sun-bronzed, to which three sculptural towers have been added – their forms derived from tree trunks, their wooden facades rising from the forest floor like a fourth species of timber – connected by underground passages that feel, appropriately, like moving through roots. All sixty-two suites face south, drawn toward the UNESCO-listed Dolomite massifs with a consistency that makes the famous peaks not a view but a condition of habitation, as constant & as necessary as the Plose spring water that flows through every tap & showerhead in the building. This is a luxury hideaway in South Tyrol conceived around four elemental pillars – pure water, clean air, abundant sun, mild climate – & everything within it, from the dolomite stone ground into the spa walls to the bark & needles gathered from the surrounding forest for the bar’s botanicals, is an expression of that philosophy enacted with complete & unfussy conviction.
Location
FORESTIS is an iconic & history-immersed, 14+ luxury hideaway experience set within a pristine alpine landscape on the serene Plose mountain in the South Tyrolean Alps
- FORESTIS, Palmschoß 22, 39042 Brixen, Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
- The Resort is conceived in harmony with the natural forest surroundings & mountain views, offering an idyllic refuge facing the majestic peaks of the UNESCO World Heritage Dolomites
The Plose mountain above Brixen is one of those places that the Alps have kept quietly to themselves – not famous, not crowded, offering a panorama of the Dolomites so unobstructed & so vast that it regularly silences arriving guests before they have spoken a word.
The surrounding Puez-Geisler Nature Park presses in from all sides – a detail that ensures the transition from the world below to the world above happens completely & without interruption.
Rooms & Suites
The Hideaway features 62 south-facing luxury suites that subtly blend minimalist architecture. All accommodations include WiFi, Minibar, TV & Safe
- Suite (50 m²): Generous south-facing suites located in the historic building, equipped with a separate living area, walk-in closet & a private terrace offering views of the Dolomite peaks, offering space for up to 2 guests
- Tower Suite (55 m²): Tastefully furnished south-facing suites set within the three wooden towers, featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, a traditional South Tyrolean tiled stove & a terrace with a cozy daybed, offering space for up to 2 guests
The suites in the historic building carry the warmth of untreated spruce & unpolished dolomite – materials that smell of the mountain they came from & that produce, in combination with the southern light flooding through floor-to-ceiling windows, an interior atmosphere of profound & effortless calm. The Tower Suites introduce the traditional South Tyrolean tiled stove, its gentle heat & the scent of warm ceramic making the alpine evenings feel like something out of a very specific & very private memory.
At the Penthouse level, a private rooftop pool & spruce wood sauna face the Dolomites directly – an arrangement so quietly extravagant that the word luxury feels temporarily inadequate.
Dining & Culinary
The hotel features a vibrant gastronomy fusing Mediterranean life culture with alpine ingredients, offering an elegant blend of nature-focused forest cuisine, terraced mountain venues & woodland-inspired mixology
- The Restaurant: The Hideaway's signature restaurant, designed in a stepped, terraced layout to ensure every single table enjoys an unobstructed view of the Dolomite massifs while serving multi-course culinary creations
- Garden Restaurant: A relaxed, unconstrained dining venue located in the historic building, surrounded by meadows & alpine plants, offering a constantly changing menu dictated by fresh, seasonal regional products
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Executive Chef Roland Lamprecht calls his kitchen Waldküche & the name is not a marketing conceit but an autobiography: he grew up in South Tyrol surrounded by the forest, foraging mushrooms & berries with his mother & the menus he composes daily from local farmers, seasonal harvest & preserved wild ingredients are the direct expression of that intimate, lifelong knowledge. The signature restaurant, terraced to ensure every table commands an unobstructed Dolomite view, offers multi-course menus of a precision & lightness that make fine dining in South Tyrol feel both rooted & elevated simultaneously.
YERA is built into the mountain where open fire is the only cooking method & up to eighteen guests sit at raw tree-trunk tables, the low-alcohol pairings made in-house & the entire experience functioning as a kind of culinary archaeology: the oldest possible relationship between human appetite & the living world, made beautiful.
Pools
The hideaway offers an immersive alpine aquatic experience that prioritizes majestic nature & direct connection with the South Tyrolean landscape, providing a restorative oasis embedded within a dense mountain forest facing the dramatic peaks of the Dolomites
- Main Indoor Pool: A heated swimming pool located on the ground floor of the spa, featuring floor-to-ceiling windows that fill the space with natural daylight & offer a direct view of the surrounding woods
- Outdoor Infinity Pool: A heated outdoor pool seamlessly connected to the indoor pool, allowing guests to swim directly outside to absorb the clear mountain air & panoramic views of the UNESCO World Heritage Dolomites
The indoor pool, its surface reflecting the Dolomite peaks through floor-to-ceiling glass, opens seamlessly to the outdoor infinity pool beyond – a continuity of water & mountain that makes swimming here feel less like exercise than like a form of extended looking, the body horizontal, the peaks vertical, the whole arrangement perfectly composed.
Wellness & Spa
A sophisticated alpine sanctuary designed for rejuvenation & physical well-being, offering exclusive rituals & tranquil spaces set within a sprawling 2,000-square-meter state-of-the-art facility & mountain-view relaxation areas
- Spa Facilities: The resort features a brine steam bath, a bio sauna, a textile sauna, a Finnish sauna, an outdoor sauna, private spa suites, a tea lounge with a curated library & a Silent Room
- Wellness Experiences: Energy-balancing facial & body treatments rooted in the custom-developed FORESTIS Tree Circle accompanied by cell-cosmetic care products from Trehs & massages
The FORESTIS Tree Circle is the spa’s defining & most original contribution to the wellness tradition of the Alps – a treatment system rooted in Celtic nature wisdom that assigns to each of four native trees (mountain pine, spruce, larch, Swiss stone pine) a specific stone, a frequency, a meridian & a season, then allows guests to choose intuitively by touch, sight & scent before the ceremony begins.
The resulting treatments – wood & stone moving through the body in a specific rhythm, frequency sounds played to match the chosen tree, warm oils carrying the tree’s essential character – are unlike any spa experience available elsewhere, because the knowledge they draw on is specific to this mountain, this forest & these particular people who have understood both for generations. A wellness spa in the Dolomites of this philosophical depth & cultural specificity is not an amenity. It is the point.
Service & Hospitality
This alpine resort Hideaway provides a range of high-end conveniences & bespoke five-star services designed by a team of hospitality experts to personalize every detail of your stay in the majestic Dolomites
- Guided Nature Walks, Sunrise Bergbergtouren & Concierge Service
- Daily Housekeeping & Evening Turndown Service
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Teresa & Stefan Hinteregger are present in the hospitality here not as a biographical detail but as a sensory reality – the warmth of people who genuinely love where they live & who designed this place not to impress guests but to share something they consider precious. The guided sunrise mountain tours, the herb farm excursions, the cooking classes with Roland in the kitchen: these are not programmes but invitations & they are extended with the ease of hosts who know their landscape intimately enough to give it away without diminishing it.
Sports & Activities
The Hideaway’s team of outdoor experts & sports professionals designs a curated set of tailor-made activities & unforgettable experiences that celebrate the rich alpine beauty & the vibrant energy of the Dolomites
- Winter Adventures: Alpine Skiing, Snowboarding, Snowshoeing, Winter Hiking, Tobogganing & Dog Sledding
- Land Activities: Mountain Biking, Hiking, Trekking, Trail Running, Barefoot Forest Walking & Nordic Walking
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Ski-in ski-out from the hideaway’s own ski room connects directly to the Plose slopes, the absence of any transfer or queue making the transition from breakfast to first descent a matter of minutes rather than logistics. In summer, the same mountain offers hiking trails of every gradient, four dedicated mountain bike routes through dense forest & guided sunrise ascents that reveal a 360-degree Dolomite panorama so compelling that the only appropriate response is silence.
Climate & Seasons
The Plose mountain experiences a high-alpine temperate climate, characterized by exceptionally pure mountain air, mineral-rich environments & an average of 300 days of sunshine year-round
- Winter Season (Dec–Apr): Known as the bluebird powder season, this period offers crisp, freezing mountain air with heavy snow-covered winter landscapes & clear, sunny blue skies – ideal for ski-in/ski-out alpine sports
- Summer Season (Jun–Sep): Known as the vibrant alpine sun season, this period brings warm, refreshing days & mild mountain breezes that offer a perfect escape from low-altitude city heatwaves – ideal for flow-line mountain biking & outdoor Celtic Wyda field practices
The Plose rewards every season with its own distinct & equally compelling character: deep powder winter mornings when the ski-out begins before the rest of the world has woken & long luminous summer evenings when the Dolomites hold the last light long after the valley below has gone dark.
Three hundred days of sun annually means that the question is rarely whether to be outside but in which direction to walk.
Reviews & Awards
Widely acclaimed by the world’s most prestigious luxury travel authorities & recognized for its pioneering sustainable forestry mastery & minimalist eco-hospitality, the Hideaway is a celebrated destination in the heart of the majestic Dolomites
- TripAdvisor: 4,8/5, based on 550+ reviews
- Booking.com: 9,7/10, based on 460+ reviews
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Named among the best hotels in Europe in the Condé Nast Traveller Gold List 2026, included in Travel + Leisure’s Top 50 Hotels in Italy & recognised with two MICHELIN Keys – these distinctions confirm what the architecture & the philosophy already make self-evident: that this address represents something genuinely new in the Alps, a place that has earned its recognition not by competing with its peers but by operating in a category that it largely invented.
What Makes This a Hotel in Heaven
What FORESTIS ultimately offers is something the hospitality industry has been attempting & rarely achieving since the concept of wellness travel first entered the vocabulary: a genuine, unperformed encounter with the natural world, delivered from within a building whose every material, every treatment, every dish & every guided experience is an expression of the same coherent conviction – that the forest is not background but substance, not setting but teacher.
The Celtic druids who inhabited these slopes identified this mountain as a place of power thousands of years before Teresa & Stefan Hinteregger rediscovered it behind overgrown hedges in the year 2000 & the extraordinary continuity of that recognition across millennia is felt in the hideaway as something more than atmosphere. The Dolomite light through the floor-to-ceiling windows each morning, the scent of untreated spruce warming in the afternoon sun, the sound of the Plose spring water in every room, the particular silence of an alpine night at eighteen hundred metres: these are not amenities designed to impress. They are the evidence of a place that was here before any of us & that will be here long after, offering itself – as it has always offered itself – to those willing to make the ascent.
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Find out more about FORESTIS...
- Visit the official website of FORESTIS
- All images ©Charlotte Lapalus_FORESTIS & ©FORESTIS