On the salty road to José Ignacio you start to exhale and relax. At this laid-back seaside settlement there’s a landmark lighthouse, hand-painted wooden signs, dunes, whitewashed cottages and Pacific breezes that soothe the mind and ruffle the hair.

This bohemian village, population 300, has become part of the extraordinary uptick in Uruguayan tourism. A magnet for barefoot travellers, it’s even being called the new St. Tropez, a cool counterpoint to glitzy Punta del Este up the coast. And much of its success is due to Alexander Vik, a Uruguayan-Norwegian art collector and investor who, with his wife Carrie, has built a handful of resorts locally in the past four years under the banner of Vik Retreats.

Bahia Vik is the latest. Located on Playa Mansa, one of José Ignacio’s two beaches, it both reflects and reveals its environment: a glass wall facing the ocean, casitas with planted roofs, dunes, grasses, succulents, salt and oxygen. It’s wonderful to gaze out upon – and of course, to use the black granite infinity pool and fire pit – but the interior is equally enchanting. Bahia Vik is the exemplary hotel-as-gallery, including work by James Turrell and Anselm Kiefer as well as lots of Uruguayan art. Typical of the Bahia is the Legrand Living Room in the Titanio Bungalow, featuring the work of Marcelo Legrand, and the Lopez Lage Suite which is devoted to the more geometric work of Fernando Lopez Lage. It’s a heady mix that responds to building, setting and nation.