Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Italy / Lavagna / Villa Riviera Resort
Villa Riviera Resort
Lavagna, Italy · Independent · Accessible Luxury
Two old villas on the Santa Giulia hill above Lavagna, fifteen rooms between them, a park of fifteen thousand square metres, and no children. Villa 900 keeps its original frescoes and its Liberty ironwork; Villa 800, one of the first houses built on this hill, came back from restoration with its Genoese tile floors and vaulted ceilings intact. The place began in 2018 as a few rooms to let and reached five stars by 2022. The heated infinity pool sits at the highest point of the garden, aimed straight down the Gulf of Tigullio at Portofino.
- 15 rooms
- Opened 2018
- Rooms from 269 sq ft (25 m²)
About Villa Riviera Resort
- Lavagna gave the Italian language its word for blackboard. The slate quarried in the hills behind the town was the stone school boards were cut from, and the resort stands on the old slate road.
- Matteo Armanino cooks at Aria, on the upper terrace of Villa 900, with the whole Gulf of Tigullio spread out below the tables.
- The outdoor spa is set among the olive trees, and its sauna is glazed on every side so that bathers keep the sea in view.
- Portofino is twenty-five minutes away and the Cinque Terre about fifty, which makes this one of the few genuinely quiet addresses within easy reach of both.
- Entry-level rooms start at 269 sq ft (25 m²).
History
Villa Riviera is a recent story told inside old walls. Two historic villas stand in a century-old park of fifteen thousand square metres on the belvedere of the Santa Giulia hill above Lavagna, and the restoration that joined them turned up the evidence of the estate's working past, including the traces of a time when grapes were pressed on the property.
Villa 900 dominates the site from above: pastel yellow outside, Liberty-style ironwork within, and original frescoes uncovered on its walls. It holds six suites, the reception, the breakfast room, the infinity pool and the upper terrace of Aria, the restaurant. Villa 800 is the older of the pair, one of the first buildings raised on the Santa Giulia hill, more rustic and ringed by dry-stone walls. Conservative restoration brought back its traditional Genoese floors, exposed beams and vaulted ceilings, and it now holds nine rooms, among them four superior rooms, an attic with a view toward Sestri Levante and four suites, all sharing the main villa's services.
The project is the work of the local entrepreneur Matteo Campodonico with general manager Giovanna Frugone. It started in 2018 as a rooms-to-let operation in Villa 900 alone, grew quickly, and became a five-star luxury resort in 2022, adults only, run as an albergo diffuso across the two houses with fifty staff, two restaurants, an outdoor spa among the olive trees and a heated infinity pool at the most panoramic point of the park.
The setting
The resort sits above Lavagna on the Santa Giulia hill, in the middle of the Gulf of Tigullio, on the line of the old slate road. Slate is why the town matters: the quarries around Lavagna and Monte San Giacomo produced a dark stone that splits into thin regular sheets, shipped out across the Mediterranean and northern Europe aboard a local vessel called the leudo, and the Italian word for a blackboard, lavagna, comes from the town and its trade. The town name itself descends from the Roman Lavania. From the hill the whole gulf is visible: Portofino about twenty-five minutes away, Sestri Levante, Rapallo, Santa Margherita and Chiavari all close, and the Cinque Terre roughly thirty minutes by train from Sestri Levante station.
Restaurants and bars
- Aria | Ristorante — Restaurant · Contemporary cuisine built around local ingredients · Chef Matteo Armanino
Amenities
- Wellness Area
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