GIUSEPPE DUCROT AND THE Christian Louboutin Hotel

Twelve years ago, French shoe designer Christian Louboutin bought a holiday home in Melides, an agricultural community on the Atlantic coast, south of Lisbon. Everything was perfect, except this: "There was no restaurant where I could go every night and hang out," he says. "My house was not built to have dinner. Lunch, yes. Dinner, no." He found a small, nondescript home on the edge of the historic village and thought he'd open a bistro there. The local mayor had a grander idea. "He said, 'Do a hotel,' " Louboutin recalls. "So I did."