Ferme Saint Siméon, Five-star hotel in Honfleur, France.

Ferme Saint Siméon is a 17th-century building on the heights of Honfleur, along the old road to Trouville. Its facade rises from a light stone base to grey shingled walls under a steep dark grey roof, with rows of tall dark-framed windows, dormer windows, a chimney and a long bracketed ledge above the middle storeys. A curved gable stands forward at the left end, and the building steps back to the right toward an entry under a shallow canopy. It now operates as a five-star hotel and restaurant of the Relais & Châteaux chain.

The building was constructed as a farmhouse in the 17th century, then turned into a country inn by the Toutain family in 1825. Over the following decades, it drew painters from across France who came for the local light and landscape.

The name Saint-Siméon comes from a chapel dedicated to Saint Simeon that stood here from the 15th century until a landslide destroyed it in the 17th century; the hamlet kept the name. From 1854 the painter Eugène Boudin, born in Honfleur in 1824, rented a room at the inn and brought friends such as Millet; in 1862 Claude Monet, then 22, and Jongkind joined his walks along the Norman coast.

The property is about a ten-minute walk from the center of Honfleur and also reachable by car, with parking on site. A visit in clear weather gives the best views over the estuary and the surrounding Norman countryside.

The farm owes its name to a small chapel dedicated to Saint Simeon, recorded from the 15th century; it was destroyed by a landslide in the 17th century, and the chapel of Grâce was later built higher on the hill with land given by the duchesse de Montpensier. The hamlet kept the name Saint-Siméon, and so did the inn.