Post Ranch Inn

Perched on a ridge that drops almost vertically into the Pacific, Post Ranch Inn was built in the late 1980s around a single instruction to its architect: nothing should be taller than the trees. The result is a scatter of low timber-and-glass structures — tree houses on stilts, grass-roofed ocean houses half-buried in the hillside — that read as terrain rather than architecture. There are no televisions and no children; the entertainment is weather moving across open water.

Guests are given the run of the property's two infinity pools, one of them heated and cantilevered over the drop, plus a cliffside spa, guided hikes into the Santa Lucia range and a stargazing session with the house astronomer. Sierra Mar, the restaurant, sits at the edge of the bluff with floor-to-ceiling glass and a wine list that runs to thousands of labels.

Rates cover a generous breakfast, the activity programme and valet parking. Highway 1 through Big Sur has reopened after years of landslide repair, so the drive down from Carmel is once again the approach it is meant to be.