Vermelho Lagoa opens in 2026 with 10 suites, lagoon views, a full spa and interiors by Olivia Putman. Its sister property Vermelho Melides, which earned Two Michelin Keys in 2025, is already one of Portugal’s most extraordinary hotels. Together they make Melides unmissable.
Melides was, until recently, the kind of place that people who loved Portugal kept quietly to themselves. A small village an hour and a half south of Lisbon, tucked between pine forests and a wild lagoon on the Alentejo coast, it had none of the profile of Comporta to its north and all of the beauty. Christian Louboutin found it by accident more than a decade ago, after being treated at a nearby hospital. He bought a fisherman’s house, and then another, and then he built a hotel.
Vermelho Melides opened in 2023 and changed the conversation about the village permanently. The 13-room hotel, designed in collaboration with Portuguese architect Madalena Caiado, is one of the most visually arresting small hotels in Europe: a maximalist celebration of colour, pattern, Portuguese craft and the accumulated influences of Louboutin’s life — Indian glass tiles, green marble from India, Baroque silverwork from Seville, frescoes by Greek artist Konstantin Kakanias on the top floor. In 2025, the Michelin Guide awarded it Two Michelin Keys, cementing it as something more than a fashion designer’s vanity project. Time magazine named it one of the World’s Greatest Places.
Vermelho Lagoa, which opens this spring ten minutes from the original hotel, is a deliberate counterpoint. Where Vermelho Melides is flamboyant and maximalist, Lagoa takes its cue from the landscape it overlooks: the wild lagoon and beach of Melides, one of the most intact stretches of Atlantic coastline in Portugal.
The 10-suite property is an existing building sensitively transformed, again with Madalena Caiado as architect, but this time with interiors by Olivia Putman, the Paris-based designer whose pared-back elegance has defined some of France’s most considered interiors. The combination of Putman’s restraint and the raw coastal landscape gives Vermelho Lagoa a very different register from its sister: quieter, more focused, more spa-led. The full wellness offering, with wet and dry areas, is exclusive to guests, as is a small restaurant. Guests of Vermelho Lagoa also have access to the Xtian restaurant at Vermelho Melides, led by chef David Abreu and built around Alentejo’s seasonal produce.
Between the two hotels, two private villas for rental — La Salvada, designed by Egyptian architect Tarek Shamma, and La Maison des Bateaux — Louboutin has assembled something that goes beyond a single hotel opening. Melides is becoming, deliberately and carefully, a destination of his own making. For those paying attention, it already was.
Vermelho Melides rates from €342 per night including breakfast. Vermelho Lagoa rates to be confirmed. More at vermelhohotel.com