The Ollie's Story

From our olive groves

Above Tivat, our family has tended the same hillside groves for generations. Everything at Ollie's begins there — the oil, the kitchen, the spa rituals, and the spirit of the house.

Home/Heritage
A Family, a Hillside

The hotel began with a tree

Long before Ollie's was a hotel, it was a hillside of olive trees, planted in the slow soil above Donja Lastva and tended by the same family that runs the house today.

The oldest trees in the grove are over two hundred years old. They produce the first oil of every season. This page is the long version of the story — how the family came to the bay, why we make the oil, and how it threads quietly through every part of the hotel.

The family olive grove above Tivat
Chapter One

The Grove

Our grove sits on the southern slope of the hillside above Tivat — open sun all morning, the bay below by lunchtime, and the cool maritime breeze that olives quietly love. There are around six hundred trees here; the oldest were planted in the early 1800s by an ancestor who fished by morning and tended the trees by afternoon.

The grove is small by industrial standards, deliberately so. Every tree is hand-pruned in winter; every olive is hand-picked in late autumn. The work is slow, and it cannot really be rushed.

Hand-Pruned Hand-Picked 600 Trees 200+ Years
The autumn olive harvest
Chapter Two

The Harvest

The harvest begins in late October and lasts roughly three weeks. Friends, family and a few longtime workers arrive at dawn with nets, ladders and small wooden combs. We pick early — when the olives are still green — for an oil with more pepper, more grass, and a brighter character.

The same day, the olives are driven down to the cold-press mill in the village. Within a few hours of leaving the tree, the oil is in the bottle. That speed is the whole reason it tastes the way it does.

Tree to bottle in less than a day. You can taste the hillside in the oil.

The new oil at the long table
Chapter Three

The Oil

Our oil is unfiltered, cold-pressed and bottled in dark glass to protect it from light. We don't sell it on supermarket shelves; we simply make enough for the family, for the hotel, and for guests who want to take a bottle home.

At Ollie's, it shows up everywhere. On the breakfast table with warm bread and herbs. As the foundation of the Luma kitchen. In the spa, blended for our signature massage. In a small ceramic bottle that arrives in your room on the first afternoon.

Extra Virgin Cold-Pressed Unfiltered Dark Glass
Olive-oil cosmetics in the bathroom
Chapter Four

Rituals & Cosmetics

From the same oil, the family produces a small line of cosmetics — a body oil, a hand cream, a face balm and a soap. They are blended with herbs from our garden and produced in small batches, only enough for use in the hotel and for guests to take a piece of Ollie's home.

You'll find them in every bathroom, beside the bath at the spa, and packaged together as a small parting gift on the day you check out.

Body oil, hand cream, face balm, soap — small batches, only for the house and its guests.

Where You'll Find It

Threaded through the hotel

The same oil that begins at the hillside ends up in four small daily gestures across your stay — quiet, never announced.

At Breakfast

Bread, sea salt, fresh herbs and the first oil of the season on the morning table.

In the Kitchen

The foundation of every Luma dish — drizzled, poured, finished at the pass.

In the Spa

Signature massages and rituals built around the seasonal oil and Mediterranean herbs.

On Departure

A small ceramic bottle of oil, packed in linen for the journey home.

600
Olive Trees
200+
Year-Old Trees
3
Weeks of Harvest
1
Family · One Hillside
“
A hotel without a story is just a building with rooms. The story we keep telling is the one of a family, a hillside and a tree — the rest of Ollie's is built around it.
— The Family
Come for the Harvest

The Olive Harvest, October

Join us for a few days in the grove — pick at sunrise, watch the press at midday, taste the new oil at dinner.

See the Harvest Offer Send an Enquiry