Lago di Como · Lombardia

Passalacqua

An eighteenth-century neoclassical villa above Lake Como in Moltrasio, restored by the De Santis family in 2022 — twenty-four suites across three buildings, terraced gardens to…

The verdict

A villa Bellini once lived in, restored two centuries later by the family that keeps the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, set in seven acres of terraced garden running the length of Lake Como. Twice voted the best boutique hotel in the world, and not loud about it.

From the editors · Vedere House

The particulars

Style: Eighteenth-century neoclassical villa, restored 2022
Rooms: Twenty-four suites across three buildings — the Villa, the Palazz, the Casa al Lago
Kitchen: Viviana Varese, served from an open kitchen rather than a closed pass
Garden: Seven terraced acres falling to five hundred metres of private lake frontage
Pools: Outdoor pool in the parterre, indoor pool below the villa, spa under the kitchen garden
Best for: Three or four nights, no schedule beyond lunch

Passalacqua was finished in 1787 for Count Andrea Lucini-Passalacqua, designed by Felice Soave with interiors by Giocondo Albertolli, on a hillside above Moltrasio that Pope Innocent XI had once owned. From 1829 to 1833 Vincenzo Bellini lived here and wrote Norma and La Sonnambula in the upstairs salon. The villa fell quiet for most of the twentieth century, was bought by the De Santis family — already custodians of the Grand Hotel Tremezzo on the opposite shore — in 2018, and reopened as a hotel in 2022 with twenty-four suites and almost nothing rebuilt that wasn't already there.

“
The frescoes were left where the eighteenth century put them; everything else was made to match.
”

Sur place

The interiors are the work of BAMO and the architect Venelli Kramer, kept under Valentina De Santis's eye, and they are the reason the house keeps reading as one composition. More than twenty kinds of Italian marble, hand-blown Murano glass, hand-laid terrazzo with floral inlays, parquet that creaks the way old parquet creaks. Each of the twenty-four suites has its own ceiling, its own palette pulled from the original frescoes, its own single Murano fixture overhead. The Bellini Suite — twin-height, balustraded, with the composer's piano — is the largest room on the lake.

Viviana Varese took the kitchen in 2022 and serves from an open one, in the manner of a private house. The garden runs the menu in summer; Lombard producers within an hour's drive run it the rest of the year. Three or four nights is the right length of stay. The lake is in front of the villa, the cedar terraces fall to five hundred metres of private waterfront, and the day arranges itself around lunch on the lower lawn and the boat the property keeps for the short crossing to dinner on the other side.

Signature moments

A double-height ceremonial salon with a Murano chandelier, painted upper balustrade, frescoed friezes and tall cream-curtained windows.

The villa Bellini wrote in

Vincenzo Bellini lived here from 1829 to 1833 and wrote *Norma* and *La Sonnambula* in the salon under the Murano chandelier. The grand piano is still in the room. A member of the staff plays it for arriving guests, the same arias, the same window onto the same lake.

A neoclassical dining room with cream-and-gold pilastered walls, a large fresco of a draped woman, and red velvet chairs around a polished table.

Dinner in the dining room

Viviana Varese took the kitchen in 2022 and runs it as if the rest of the house is the dining room. The neoclassical room behind the salon is set with red velvet chairs under a fresco of a woman with a falcon. The menu reads from the kitchen garden, the lake and Lombard producers within an hour's drive.

A round marble breakfast table on a wrought-iron lakeside terrace — orange tulips, a silver coffee pot, fresh pastries — Lake Como and the western shore in soft morning light.

Breakfast at the Casa al Lago

A short walk down through the cedars to the small lakeside dwelling. A round marble table set on the terrace, a vase of orange tulips, the silver coffee pot — and the lake doing the rest. The Casa al Lago keeps four suites; the breakfast is for the whole house.

Inside the house

The bar at Passalacqua — wood panelling, a mirrored back, Fortuny pleated lampshades, a marble counter set with bottles, glassware and pale roses.

A guest suite in the Villa — sage-green walls, a gilded baroque headboard, a brass-bound trunk at the foot of the bed, a Murano chandelier above.

A bathroom with rose-pink walls, a freestanding white bath, a double marble vanity and a gilt baroque mirror in late afternoon light.

A blue salon with a marble fireplace, gilt overmantel mirror, wicker café chairs around small round tables and a worn antique rug on the terrazzo.

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