Elite Traveler Spring 2023

EXPLORE NEWHOTELS

Passalacqua ITALY

To stand above the lake amid the cedars and cypress trees, and imbibe all of its shimmering silvery serenity, is to understand what all the fuss is about. And there are few better vantage points from which to do that than the bend in the lake a ff ordinga spectacular dual aspect perspective, where the latest addition to Lario’s long list of premium properties cascading down the ages has just made a dramatic debut: Passalacqua. Constructed by Count Andrea Lucini Passalacqua in 1787, on land originally owned by Pope Innocent XI, this gorgeous palazzo whose storied journey embraces Napoleon, Churchill, the composer Bellini and, more recently, Rosemary Clooney’s nephew in a nearby

village, had remained a private property until now. In truth, while technically a 24-room hotel, it still has the air of a very private, very re fi ned home. That is surely the intention of the owners, Valentina De Santis and her parents Paolo and Antonella, well-known since 1975 as the owners of one of Como’s foremost Grande Dames, the Grand Hotel Tremezzo. Almost accidental proprietors, having randomly popped in to view the property days before its 2018 auction, the De Santises were soon sucked into the vortex of a meticulous $20m, three-year renovation. With Valentina immersing herself in the redesign, and her parents scouring auction rooms the length and breadth of Italy, the project was very much a family

Is there — has there ever been? — an expanse of water anywhere, so laced with centuries of celebrity endorsements and imbued with such historical signi fi cance? Known to the ancient Romans as Lario, and to us as Lake Como, it drifts into the 21st century with the same patrician con fi dence in its own unassailable allure, as when Roman author Pliny the Younger constructed his two villas, the commedia and the tragedia (both lost to time) on the lake’s shores, in the 1st century AD.