2 weeks Ago By Radhika Seth
If you’ve ever visited Splendido, A Belmond Hotel high above Portofino’s La Piazzetta, you might recall, on your stroll down to the blue-green Ligurian Sea, passing a string of candy-coloured, cove-side palazzos mere feet from the water. The most enviable address among them? Villa Beatrice , an art nouveau mansion whose sea garden and wraparound terrace are made for sipping Aperol as the sun goes down over the Italian Riviera. Come July, the turreted residence will open its doors as a private holiday villa under the Belmond umbrella.
“It really captures the spirit of the region,” Martin Brudnizki, who oversaw the restoration of the property, tells Vogue . Enchanted by Tuscan architect Gino Coppedè’s original 1913 frescoes, the Annabel’s designer echoed their floral, marine and ribbon motifs across ceilings, walls and textiles, while an ice-cream-hued palette draws a through-line from Splendido to its sophisticated little sister. Brudnizki is behind the former’s extensive, two-year refurbishment too, filling the converted Benedictine monastery’s rooms with Albisola ceramics and Graniglia alla Genovese tiles.
The reimagining of the hotel culminates this June with the unveiling of a refreshed main building and a Dior spa, including four treatment cabins dotted around the star-jasmine-scented, bougainvillea-draped grounds. And it isn’t the only national treasure to have received a new lease of life either. Nestled among the majestic Dolomites, the storybook 1930s lodge of Rosa Alpina has also had a makeover, courtesy of Aman, ahead of its reopening this summer.
Still presided over by third-generation owners the Pizzininis (who have played host to everyone from George Clooney to the Prince of Monaco over the years), the hotel’s Amanification has included a reimagining of 50 sumptuous alpine chalet-style rooms and suites in the shadow of Lavarella. A summer excursion here might involve clambering up steep edelweiss-lined paths to turquoise lakes before dinner at Norbert Niederkofler’s three-Michelin-starred Atelier Moessmer, where each and every meal is a paean to South Tyrolean ingredients: alpine strawberries, larch-smoked trout, pine gelée..
. For more urban pleasures, dip down to the capital for a Roman holiday at Orient Express La Minerva , the first hotel from the brand restoring ’20s and ’30s art-deco carriages to routes made famous by Agatha Christie. The former 17th-century palace reopens this April just a coin’s toss from the Pantheon, with its rooms giving out onto Bernini’s obelisk-carrying elephant.
Naturally, its rebirth leans into its remarkable heritage, complete with Doric columns, Murano chandeliers and 19th-century sculptor Rinaldo Rinaldi’s Carrara marble renderings of various Roman deities – including Minerva, the goddess of art, herself. That’s before mentioning the rooftop, from which you can admire the colossal dome of the Eternal City’s fabled temple, alongside the spire of the Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza and the roof of the Quirinal Palace..
. The allure of summer in bel paese, it seems, is a long way from waning..
