Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Italy / Gardone Riviera / Villa Capri
Villa Capri
Gardone Riviera, Italy · Independent · Accessible Luxury
It began in the 1920s as Villa Mathieu, became the Hotel Capri in the 1950s, and still holds its own stretch of Gardone Riviera shoreline with the town casino next door. The Piva family ran it for nearly forty years and in 1984 added the villa alongside, which had belonged to the head of the Société Française d’Électricité and later to the racing driver Antonio Stagnoli. Forty-five rooms look over a ten-thousand-square-metre park that falls to the water, with a heated pool in the middle of it. South Tyrol's Athesia group bought the place in 2022.
- 45 rooms
- Rooms from 194 sq ft (18 m²)
About Villa Capri
- Antonio Stagnoli, who lived in the villa the hotel later absorbed, was killed in 1953 while racing in Mexico.
- Athesia, the Ebner family's South Tyrolean group, paid just under ten million euros for the hotel in January 2022, ending almost four decades of Piva ownership.
- It is a bed and breakfast by design: breakfast goes out on the poolside terrace, the bar does light plates through the day, and the front desk sends you into Gardone for dinner.
- Entry-level rooms start at 194 sq ft (18 m²).
History
The house on Corso Zanardelli began as Villa Mathieu, built most likely in the 1920s, and became a hotel in the 1950s under the name Hotel Capri. It sits directly on the western shore of Lake Garda between Gardone Riviera and Fasano, bordered on one side by the town casino and on the other by Villa Maria Elisabetta.
In 1983 the property passed to the Piva family, hoteliers with houses at Toscolano Maderno and Gardone Riviera, and in 1984 they also bought the villa next door, known as Villa Graziosa or Villa Nicolini after the owner who acquired it in the 1930s, the president of the Société Française d’Électricité. That house was later lived in by the racing driver Antonio Stagnoli, who died in 1953 during a race in Mexico. The hotel proper was enlarged in the 1990s and now runs to forty-five rooms, from eighteen-square-metre economy doubles up to forty-eight-square-metre junior suites, most with a balcony or terrace over the lake.
In January 2022, after almost forty years, the Piva family sold to Athesia, the South Tyrolean group led by Michl Ebner, for a reported figure just under ten million euros. Athesia is better known for publishing, with four newspapers including the Dolomiten and Alto Adige, and already owned the Hotel Terme in Merano and the Grawand in the Val Senales. The hotel operates as a four-star bed and breakfast, with breakfast on the poolside terrace, a snack bar through the day and an American Bar in the evening, inside a ten-thousand-square-metre park with a heated pool.
The setting
Gardone Riviera is the western-shore town that Gabriele D'Annunzio chose to disappear into. In February 1921 he rented Villa Cargnacco, a farmhouse confiscated by the Italian state from the German art historian Henry Thode, then bought it and spent the rest of his life turning the hillside into the Vittoriale degli Italiani with the architect Gian Carlo Maroni: a house, an open-air theatre, gardens, a mausoleum, the MAS boat he taunted the Austrians with in 1918, and the entire bow section of the cruiser Puglia, hauled up the hill in 1925 and pointed at the Adriatic. Around 300,000 people a year go through it. The Hruska botanical garden is on the same slope, Salò is a few minutes south along the lake, and the hotel's own stretch of shoreline sits between the casino and the promenade.
Restaurants and bars
- Bistro — Restaurant
- Cocktail bar — Bar
Experiences
- Cycling around Lake Garda and Gardone — Lake Garda and Gardone are ideal places to explore by bike; hotel bikes available for guests.
- Golf at Gardagolf, Arzaga and Franciacorta — Attractive green fee tariffs for Villa Capri guests.
- Boat ride on Lake Garda — Boat ride on the lake and visit to picturesque lakeside villages
- Hiking or biking in surrounding mountains and nature parks — Hike or bike tour in mountains and nature parks around Lake Garda
Amenities
- Indulgent breakfast
- Mineral water in the minibar (refilled daily)
- Coffee and tea station
- Beach bag with towels and slippers
- Car parking
- Direct lake access
- Wi-Fi free of charge throughout the hotel
- Bicycle storage in a lockable room
- Bikes for guests at € 3,00 per hour
- Electric car charging station at 50 cents per kWh
- Transfers from airport or train station on request
- Massages and treatments on request
- Terrace breakfast with lake views
- Garden park reaching to the lake shore
- Pavilion hidden in the park with lake view
- Massage on request in the park pavilion
Open Villa Capri in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
More hotels in Gardone Riviera
- Hotel Bella Riva — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- Hotel Villa Del Sogno — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- Grand Hotel Gardone Lake Garda, LXR Hotels & Resorts — LXR Hotels · Core Luxury
- Grand Hotel Fasano — Independent · High Luxury