Carbis Bay is a sweep of blue sea with golden sand almost a mile wide, flanked by St Ives harbour and Godrevy lighthouse in the distance. The art-deco style white walled Main House at Carbis Bay Hotel was built in 1894 by Cornish architect Silvanus Trevail. The family-owned estate quickly gained popularity among Victorian travellers, who arrived by rail, and it has attracted the well-heeled ever since, hosting the G7 in 2021 and won Best Hotel in the Muddy Awards 2024.

These days, the offering has expanded from the Main House, where alongside 35 individually furnished rooms and sea-facing suites, you will find here the Orangery, a light and airy dining area with far-reaching sea views. The Ocean Venue next-door is home to luxury sea-facing beach suites, Walter’s on the Beach Restaurant, Carbis Bay Deli, Deli Restaurant & Interiors Store and upstairs, Michelin starred chef Adam Handling’s Cornish fine-dining restaurant, Ugly Butterfly. Tucked away at the quieter end of the beach sit eight luxury lodges with roof terraces, beach gardens and hot tubs.

The multi-award-winning C Bay Spa, with year-round heated pools and peaceful treatment rooms, offers Bamford Spa Treatments – so exclusive, it is the only spa in Cornwall which does.

The entire estate looks outs onto St Ives Bay, where the privately-owned beach has the UK’s only hotel owned Blue Flag and Seaside Award accreditation – a mile of soft, golden sand and sheltered waters, where the Ocean Sports Centre offers tuition and hire of paddleboards and kayaks. Sitting above the sand is the Beach Club Restaurant with its informal “Mediterranean” appeal and open-air hot tub above the sands.

The 125 acre estate also includes verandas and terraces, subtropical gardens as well as up the wooded valley a selection of stone built cottages and apartments. The South West Coast Path passes through the estate on its way to St Ives, and, following in the steps of the first arrivals, for those eco-conscious travellers, the railway branch line (change at the mainline station St Erth) is still at Carbis Bay, offering stylish luxury seaside breaks without needing to drive or fly.

Literary associations are plentiful: the waterside hotel was the inspiration for Rosamund Pilcher’s ‘The Sands Hotel’ in her novels The Shell Seekers and Winter Solstice, and the view of the lighthouse was immortalised by Virginia Woolf, who stayed at Carbis Bay Hotel for three weeks in 1914, in To The Lighthouse.