Some places are found. This one was felt.
Domaine Aari Ona sits in the Vallée de Barétous, at 380m above sea level, overlooking the village of Aramits in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. In this wide, quiet valley, the mountains rise in every direction, and the sky seems larger than it should. We didn’t come looking for it. We came across it, and it was immediately clear that something here was worth saving.
The oldest part of the property dates to 1763 — a working Bearnaise farm with stone outbuildings and stables, extended in the 19th century as the land grew. The barn that now houses the suites was added in 1984. The meadows and woodland stayed as they were, untouched and unhurried. Three layers of time, held together by the same landscape.
When we bought it in 2021, the potential was obvious to us and invisible to almost everyone else. The history was intact. The land was extraordinary. The rest was work — and work is something we understand.
What you find here now is the result of two people with strong opinions about how a place should feel. Not a hotel that performs hospitality. A domaine that simply practices it.
A Brief History
The original farmstead dates to 1763 – a modest cluster of stone buildings in the Vallée de Barétous. A house, a small stable, a well with a fountain. Functional, rooted, built to last.
Through the 19th century, the farm grew in stages – a barn of 300 m², a henhouse, a pig stable, and the farmhouse extended to its current footprint. By the late 20th century, a large cow stable had been added. The land was working land, and it looked like it.
Farm activities wound down at the turn of the 21st century. The complex changed hands and was converted into a modest tourist space – studios, cottages, a pool. A beginning of sorts, but not yet the place it was capable of becoming.
In 2021 Angelika and Jens Eric Büttner bought the domaine. What followed was three years of serious work – stripping back, rebuilding, replanting, reimagining – before the first guest arrived. The gardens were redesigned from the ground up. The barn became the suites. The event spaces were created. The gym was added. The terraces were rebuilt entirely.
The result is what you find today. Three centuries of accumulated history, and a place that finally looks like itself.
