“They’ll have to pry me out of here,” my friend Pam says. She’s standing in my bathroom, her gaze alternating between the glass-walled, stone-tiled shower and the deep, sunken tub. “No, really,” she says. “I’ll never leave this bathroom. Never.”
Within moments of stepping through the hand-carved Spanish gates of the InterContinental’s Montelucia Resort and Spa (4949 E. Lincoln Drive, Paradise Valley, Ariz.; 480/627-3200; www.icmontelucia.com; standard double rooms begin at $215), this begins as a humorous motive, but by the end of the first day, it’s an earnest vow. Every detail of this new resort, sitting on the shoulder of Phoenix’s Paradise Valley, attaches to the pleasure synapses in subtle, binding ways. Even I, an avid explorer who usually leaves a hotel the moment she checks in, feel seduced.
Pam heads off to bond with her own room. I pause on my balcony, casting an eye across Montelucia’s adult-populated pool below me (another one, for families, sparkles with happy activity in an adjacent area). My view is oasislike, backed by the sun-soaked ochre ramparts of Camelback Mountain. I feel myself succumbing to happy inertia.
I meander through Montelucia’s lush, village-style enclaves and cannot believe this place opened just months ago. From the plantings to the antique lamps, it has the feel of a beautifully kept Alhambra resort, packed up from Spain and set lovingly in the Arizona desert. Five years in the making, and the first InterContinental resort in the United States from a brand largely associated with glamorous urban hotels, Montelucia shows me what a resort can be: open, European and, yes, enticing.
A two-hour visit to Joya Spa, an organic facial and a half-nap in the relaxation room—a low-lit Moroccan paradise of platform beds shrouded in sheer white panels—seal my fate. Later, a round of cocktails and tapas at Mbar introduces me to the eponymous house cocktail, a sexy blend of Plymouth gin, Grand Marnier, red grapes, fresh lemon juice, bitters and a dash of Champagne. Then dinner at Prado, Montelucia’s central restaurant, where chef de cuisine Claudio Urciuoli unleashes his wood-fired grill onto endlessly tempting combinations of fresh ingredients.
Just a short drive away, there’s the shopping, hiking and cultural delights of Phoenix’s burgeoning, bustling scene. Perhaps if I were at Montelucia longer than a weekend, I’d leave the Spanish courtyards, the pools and the resort coffeehouse that sells organic dark chocolates. I ponder this as I wrap myself up in a Montelucia robe and say to myself, “Nope. They’d have to pry me out of here.”