Mr & Mrs Smith

Can this really be it, we wonder, as we bump along a winding dirt track in the dead of the Tuscany night. And then, like the treasure at the end of the tunnel, La Bandita hits us: a silent monolith haloed by a tinsel tiara of lights on the horizon.

Previously Christina Aguilera’s manager, John Voigtmann moved to World Heritage site Val d’Orcia to live the dream and open La Bandita with his wife Ondine, who works for Condé Nast Traveler. The pair worked with Richard Rogers’ bloodline to turn this derelict farmhouse into a luxurious Tuscan boutique hotel, incorporating terracotta from Impruneta, marble from Bagno Vignoni and linens from Busatti, in the nueva rustica style.

The chef has been cooking up a storm in the kitchen. There has been one of La Bandita’s signature banquets, and the elegantly wasted scene sets the tone: more like the open house party of long-lost friends (who just happen to be a rock star and supermodel) than the pomp and rigour of a five-star abode. The modern rustic design, with its gigantic beanbags and soothing interiors is as welcoming as the magnanimous approach, which extends to mountain bikes, cappuccinos and soft drinks on the house (plus, John mentions, he usually forgets to charge for the bottles of wine drawn from his cellar). Ondine serves us an exemplary three-course supper in the garden: cosseted by the stretching white canopy and twinkling stars, it’s immediately evident why the world’s style magazines hyped this hip bolthole to the hilt.

In our room, shadows stretch over the 17th-century Renaissance friezes and the freestanding four-poster beckons masterfully, the seductive centrepiece to the calming, minimalist schema and muted colours, and the rest... Well, that isn’t for us to share here.

I love arriving by nightfall and waking to be presented with a transformation – sunlight streaming through the shutters, a ‘breakfast in bed’ tray of wholesome delights waiting outside our door and an endless view of rolling Tuscan hills, cedar-lined roads and stone villages. The expansive grounds, set up high in a 2,000 acre nature reserve, could have been plucked straight from a compendium of ‘archetypal vistas to blow your mind’. The panorama is so epic you think you have seen it in your dreams – but it was on the big screen – La Bandita’s backdrop was the setting for The English Patient and Gladiator.

With only eight double rooms, the hotel is intimate and gloriously private. The rooms are large, light and airy while locally commissioned bold colour walls feature 300-year-old fresco painting techniques, which add a warm and welcoming texture to the sleek, minimal lines and contemporary edge.

Detached from the main building is the luxurious Pig Sty suite, which comes with a private kitchen and pergola, and two large shaded outdoor lounge areas that provide ample relaxation space to melt into a glass of Montepulciano while perusing a tome from the extensive library (John generously offers carte blanche on his extensive vinyl collection, too). There is also a steamy hammam in which to cleanse away your cares. But back in our room there was the freestanding, sunken bathtub and ‘party shower’ to investigate. Forgive me, but we didn’t emerge until lunchtime.

Then, under John’s advice, we head to Valdipiatta, a Montepulciano vineyard producing the magisterial Nobile di Montepulciano. The place breathes vitality as the valley stretches before us. All the tastings seem to go to Mrs Smith’s head and she manages to etch her white Nicole Farhi dress with the blue drops of our sensational claret. Or perhaps that was just a Machiavellian ploy to drag me to the feast of overdraft-inducing designer warehouses nearby – where I zone out over the bella donnas, and Mrs Smith adopts a worryingly glazed expression as she loses herself in Gucci, Prada, Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs and Luella, all discounted by up to 70 per cent.

We then make the short journey to Italy’s Pecorino-cheese capital Pienza – a Renaissance jewel designed by Pope Pius II – to Latti di Luna, where the parrot greeter caws ‘Ciao’, and we drown in aperitivi, life envy and the sinking red sunset, and finally voice the unspoken: perhaps we too could have a slice of the Tuscan idyll, living la dolce vita as outlaws from the industry in our ranch atop a hill.

The following morning we explore La Bandita’s spectacular hot tub and gigantic infinity pool – in which we feel as though we are floating above a verdant green amphitheatre of rolling valleys, chalk-cast hills, olive groves and the friendly flocks of sheep who are Val D’Orcia’s native citizens – a 360-degree snapshot of a vista that hasn’t changed much in the last two millennia.
 
For a hotel that was only opened in June 2007 after ‘one year of paperwork and one year of real work’, you can't help but be awed by John and Ondine's La Bandita – these style marauders are living a dream that, let’s face it, we’d all love to hijack. As the sun beamed over the horizon and the surrounding villages turned to the sacred ritual of lunch, we city bandits set off, and the head honchos prepared to rejuvenate their next urban cowboys.