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Villa Lario Resort Mandello
Mandello del Lario, Italy · Independent · Accessible Luxury
A Milanese family called Biffi-Capalbi built this villa in the 1920s as a summer house on the Lecco arm, the branch of Lake Como that Manzoni opens his novel with. It went next to a Moto Guzzi executive, then to the Grundig family, who handed it to a German foundation that housed retired artists and politicians. Two friends, Esa Secca and Raffaella Di Gennaro, turned it into a five-star hotel in 2015: nine suites, some in the villa, one down at the dock, one cut into a grotto, and Luca Mozzanica cooking at Amandus.
- 9 rooms
- Opened 2015
- Rooms from 377 sq ft (35 m²)
About Villa Lario Resort Mandello
- The two founders still run the place themselves, and marked ten years in 2025 with Larienne, a London dry gin distilled and bottled for this hotel alone.
- Nine suites share a ten-thousand-square-metre park, two beaches with direct lake access, a private mooring and a helipad on the grounds.
- Mandello del Lario has been building Moto Guzzi motorcycles since 1921, and the factory and its newly rebuilt museum are minutes from the gate, which is how a Guzzi executive came to own the villa in the first place.
- The smallest published suite or villa start at 377 sq ft (35 m²).
History
The villa stands on the foundations of a nineteenth-century farm building; the house itself was raised on those remains in the 1920s by the noble Milanese family Biffi-Capalbi, who used it as their summer residence. Around the 1950s it passed to an executive of Moto Guzzi, whose works are a short walk along the shore, and then became the property of the Grundig family, who donated it to a German foundation that used it mainly to house artists and politicians in retirement.
After a long stretch of uncertainty a family of entrepreneurs from Lecco bought the villa in 2010, but the hotel dates from 2015, when two friends, Esa Secca and Raffaella Di Gennaro, decided to turn a shared love of travel and cooking into a business. Villa Lario Resort opened as a five-star boutique house with nine suites: some in the villa with terraces over the water, some at the dock a few steps from the lake, one in a grotto. The kitchen, Amandus, went to executive chef Luca Mozzanica, who has been with the project from the start.
The resort celebrated its tenth year in 2025 with a limited-edition London dry gin, Larienne, distilled for the hotel by Cillario & Marazzi at Cadegliano Viconago, and a menu built from ten dishes out of the restaurant's own history. A further phase has been announced: two more rooms and a spa.
The setting
Mandello del Lario is on the eastern shore of the Lecco arm, the quieter and more mountainous of Lake Como's two branches, roughly halfway between the city of Lecco and the coves of Lierna. It is a motorcycle town: Carlo Guzzi and Giorgio Parodi founded Moto Guzzi here on 15 March 1921, the works have never moved off Via Parodi, and the red factory gate is a pilgrimage site for riders. A new factory and a 3,000-square-metre museum holding 160 machines opened in September 2026 for the marque's 105th anniversary. Villa Monastero at Varenna, an eight-century-old former Cistercian convent where Enrico Fermi gave his last physics lectures in 1954, is up the same shore, and the Sentiero del Viandante walking route passes above the town.
Restaurants and bars
- Villa Bianca Ristorante — Restaurant
- Casa Làrio Bottega & Cocktails — Bar
Amenities
- Weddings and private celebrations
- Option to celebrate at Il Palazzo or privatize the entire estate
Awards
- MICHELIN One Key (2026)
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