“Cold feet, cold feet!” the massage therapist said as I came prancing in off the chilly back lawn. “That’s really good, though,” she said, of my walking barefoot on the grass, soaking up all the minerals and whatnot. “It’s called earthing.”

Now wait. I can just see you, Mr City Slicker, sitting at your particle-board desk in your plastic cubby hole, rolling your eyes at the word “earthing”. But let me tell you, reconnecting with the natural world, which is the mission of The Dutchess, a lovely boutique hotel and working farm outside Rhinecliff, New York, and employer of said masseuse, is a welcome escape from our shrink-wrapped, non-biodegradable lives. Earthing is where it’s at.

I came to The Dutchess in early spring after weeks, months of complaining to anyone who’d listen and a bunch of people who wouldn’t about how badly I needed a forest bath, a retreat from the city. Upstate, in the mornings there was a fluffy crunch of frost on the grass and the hotel was still in a bit of a soft-open stage, whispered about over dinners as a “secret hotel”. But what a welcome retreat it was. By day I did yoga in the renovated 1750s barn, or wandered through the miles of woods on the property, dallied in the former millhouse-turned-writer’s-office on a little stream behind the stone house, first completed in the 18th century but, like all of the buildings on the property, totally overhauled over the past 20 years.

Building on those bones, it manages to both advance into the Instagram era and retreat to something simpler. The Dutchess, under the creative direction of Ms Kelsey Falter, is full of delectable little vignettes that kept reminding me of Mr Andrei Tarkovsky’s Polaroids – perfect little frames of seemingly undecorated plaster, wide board floors, fireplaces and fluffy beds.

Just as my attention was being called to the natural details around, it was the perfect time to talk with the local farmer – about 80 per cent of the produce served is grown on site and supplemented by a farm nearby – about sustainability, soil health and the quality of flavours to expect from local greens pulled out of the earth that week, rather than a month later. This got us – the two dozen or so residents in the 14 rooms that weekend – ready for the main event: the food. The amazing, surprising and incredibly pretty food by chef Mr Mark Margiotta, an alumnus of Eleven Madison Park, among others. In the summer, Mr Margiotta and his team build little outdoor spaces where groups can have private dinners, or even little romantic spots for two. In the chill of my late-March visit, we all dined together in the soft woody main building after a few drinks at the bar, talking about the discoveries we’d made on our walks (a massive wind chime, odd assortments of mushrooms).

In other words, there was no place to hide from the cosy conviviality, no room for cold feet. We’d all gone to ground together and are now, no doubt, raving about it in the same way I am doing to you and anyone who will or won’t listen.

To book please visit mrandmrssmith.com or contact Smith24 0330 100 3180 (UK), +1 800 464 2040 (US) or +44 (0)20 8338 7753 (the rest of the world)

thedutchess.com