Why Now is the Time to Enjoy Lake Como's Jewel Villa d'Este
Villeggiatura is Italian for something that takes non–Italian speakers much longer to say—“a summer holiday in a residence in the country”—and for centuries no Italian villa hotel has attracted more summer (and spring and fall) vacanzieri than Villa d’Este, in the hamlet of Cernobbio on Lake Como. It was built in 1586 by the architect Pellegrino Pellegrini as a summer retreat for Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio, a showpiece for entertaining politicians, intellectuals, ecclesiastics. Word spread. In 1615 the sultan of Morocco arrived with his retinue to witness for himself the villa’s splendors.
Owners and residents of wealth, power, and eccentricity would follow, succumbing to the villa’s luxuriousness. In the early 1800s one Vittoria Pelusa, a former ballerina, built a series of miniature forts on a hillside adjoining the gardens so that her young, handsome second husband, a Napoleonic general, could entertain himself by staging mock battles, instead of getting into other kinds of trouble. Caroline of Brunswick, the future queen of England, purchased the property in 1815 to escape a loveless marriage to her first cousin, George IV. Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Tsar Alexander III, booked it for two months in 1868 and stayed two years.
When the villa became a hotel, in 1873, an uninterrupted procession of the illustrious began arriving—politicians, actors, artists, industrialists. They came, they saw, they were slayed by: the villa’s nonpareil location on the shore of Lake Como, surrounded by Alpine foothills; the classical proportions of the building; the Old World service, at once formal and familial; the interior decor, full of art and antiques, silks and artisanal brocades; and the 25 acres of garden, which together with the villa itself were declared a national monument in 1913. (Pictured above is the 16th century Nymphaeum, or Mosiac Wall.)
Alfred Hitchcock, who was a frequent visitor, shot many scenes for his first film, The Pleasure Garden, on the grounds, apparently as enchanted by them as Edith Wharton was in 1903. “Almost everywhere else,” she lamented in Italian Villas and Their Gardens, “the old -garden-magic has been driven out by a fury of modern horticulture.” In an early novel, Vladimir Nabokov, who visited Cernobbio in 1968, has a character say that he loves places that resonate with an atmosphere of ages other than the one you’re in, which sums up the time-travel seductiveness of Villa d’Este. It refuses to yield to the vagaries of fashion (“immune to mode,” as a regular puts it), choosing instead judicious renovation nella tradizione with updates as needed: a helipad, a superb spa and sports club, two pools, four tennis courts, an 8,000-square-foot kitchen (installed in 2017).
March marks the start of Villa d’Este’s 150th season. Since November 1 it has been shuttered for an annual rite. Each of its 152 guestrooms has been emptied: mattresses stacked, furniture moved, Murano chandeliers taken down, lampshades removed, barware boxed, rugs and drapes rolled up, art ministered to by restorers. Come March 1, all will have been put back—polished, cleaned, repaired (and some rooms completely refurbished).
As a friend who has many times witnessed the aftereffects of this renewal says, “That’s why this place is timeless. If you can’t do better than what you’ve already got, what’s the point of changing?” But there is something new on the horizon. As part of its anniversary season, Villa d’Este will be open, for the first time, for next Christmas and New Year’s. And in the evening the band will play, as it has done for decades in summers on the marble terrace overlooking the lake.
This story appears in the March 2022 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
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