I do like to be beside the sea

My "Dragon class" room has two windows that look directly over the beach. At night, I drift in and out of sleep with the tide, listening to the waves. In the morning, the sand and sea are a shimmer of gold and silver and the boats lie still against a haze of rolling hills. It's so quiet you can almost hear the clack of local crabs.

For families in search of a British beach hotel, the South Sands — which reopened in May after standing empty for seven years — just might be the holy grail. As my sister, three-year old niece and I eat a tasty poached eggs breakfast in the light-flooded restaurant, fellow guests sit happily on the terrace, keeping one eye on their children on the sand below.

It was the beach location that persuaded general manager Jeff Gillard and his business partner Andrew Turner to resurrect the hotel. The two men were running the Sloop Inn gastro pub in the local surfing spot of Bantham, and they recognised an opportunity. Devon has a dearth of chic boutique beach hotels: the Whitehouse in Chillington is set back from the coast and the Cary Arms in Babbacombe is on a rocky hillside.

The challenge was to get the New England look they were after. Hotel du Vin architects MPA have done a beautiful job on the three-story exterior, cladding it in battleship grey-painted wood and fronting the restaurant with distinctive French windows. But the interiors MPA proposed were "too Hotel du Vin-on-sea", says Gillard. So he and Turner entrusted them to Henrietta Thorn, their 22-year-old admin assistant. It was an inspired decision.

Working with talented blacksmith Joff Hopper, from the Metal Pig Forge in Dartington, and joiner Pete Goss, Thorn has conjured up a smart, relaxed interior that is yachty but not gimmicky: restaurant chairs by Lloyd Loom, twills and linens by Linwood and Manuel Canovas (the Sark print), and nautical antiques including an old rudder from the Salcombe Boat Store.

The colour schemes in the 22 rooms vary from pale-blue and sand in room 11 (my room) to cobalt-blue and white in the J-Class honeymoon suite. There are also five spacious family Beach suites sleeping four to six.

There are some fabulous sofas in the family suites covered in sailcloth from Quba Sails. Quba now sells "nautical apparel" in a fleet of upmarket seaside towns. But it started in Salcombe, as did Jack Wills, the label with a quirky take on British sporting traditions that is the current darling of teenage girls. Both are sold in the lively little town, a balmy 20-minute ride on the South Sands Ferry.

Conveniently, there is also a sailing, paddle-surfing and kayaking centre beside the hotel, operating out of a 19th-century lifeboat station. In a two-hour paddle-surfing "buzz" session with Ben Sherring, the centre's amiable owner, he takes me round to North Sands Bay, the site of the popular Winking Prawn restaurant, then past Fort Charles, the ruins of a Royalist stronghold that finally fell to Cromwell, and out along the "Heritage Coast". It's supremely relaxing, as is venturing up the Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary for lunch at the 16th-century Millbrook Inn. Extending out like a bony hand, the estuary has a pub at the head of every vegetation-tangled creek and it's a great place for boat, boathouse and second-home watching.

Nor is that the last of the treats, because back at the hotel there is the menu by Mitch Tonks, creator of Dartmouth's Seahorse Restaurant and author of last year's Fish. Tonks says the seafood in the estuary is sustainably fished and among the best in the world. The lemon sole fish and chips, £12.50, is the popular dish, but I loved the seabass with feta, walnut and mint pesto.

A few more children's options would be welcome but the young international staff couldn't do enough and by 8pm the place was heaving, with both guests and local holidaymakers. And there was still that view over the beach, where the tide was out again, and a family played cricket in the sunset.