Prospect House Private Hotel

Tasmania’s already impressive cache of luxury boutique hotels now counts this handsome Georgian country house among its ranks. Set on the outskirts of the historical village of Richmond — a 20-minute drive from downtown Hobart — the 1831-built sandstone mansion served as a family residence, guesthouse, and farmhouse before John and Libby Pooley, the owners of nearby Pooley Wines, purchased it and poured US$3.4 million into renovations. The upper story of the main house is now occupied by just one suite, complete with its original fireplace and views of vineyard-cloaked hills. Ten more guest rooms inhabit the former coach house and stables that wrap around a courtyard out back, each lushly appointed with locally made fabrics. The cellar where the convicts who built the mansion were chained up at night now houses an impressive wine collection and — somewhat incongruously — can be used for dinner parties. More genial is the dining room, where chef Kurstin Berriman turns ingredients sourced mainly from the surrounding Coal River Valley into delicacies like eel mousse with saltbush and braised wallaby. Breakfast here is also outstanding, a feast of home-hung yogurt with preserved plums, freshly toasted granola, foraged field mushrooms, and thick slabs of cured ham. — 61-3/6205-9740; prospecthouseprivatehotel.com.au; doubles from US$240