Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Portugal / Lisbon / Valverde Lisboa Hotel & Garden, Relais & Chateaux
Valverde Lisboa Hotel & Garden, Relais & Chateaux
Lisbon, Portugal · Valverde · Core Luxury
The only Relais and Chateaux house in central Lisbon hides behind a discreet door on Avenida da Liberdade, and it takes its name from what that land was called before the Marquis of Pombal laid his walled public promenade across it: Valverde, the green valley. Inside, Jose Pedro Vieira and Diogo Rosa La built a London townhouse. Bougain Avenida cooks Portuguese, often with live fado or jazz in the room.
- 48 rooms
- Opened 2014
- Neighborhood: Avenida da Liberdade
- Rooms from 269 sq ft (25 m²)
- Architect: Diogo Rosa La and Jose Pedro Vieira (Bastir)
- Interiors: Jose Pedro Vieira and Diogo Rosa La (Bastir); garden by Joao Bicho and Joana Carneiro
About Valverde Lisboa Hotel & Garden, Relais & Chateaux
- It opened in September 2014 with just 25 rooms, then absorbed two adjoining buildings on Rua de Sao Jose, one of them from 1889, to reach 48 rooms and suites.
- The prints on the walls are a set of engravings of Raphael's Vatican loggias, commissioned from Giovanni Volpato in 1776, and the lamps and furniture were bought piece by piece at auctions and antique dealers.
- Columns in the Salao Valverde were designed to read as the funnels of a 1920s ocean liner, which is a strange thing to find on a Lisbon avenue.
- Entry-level rooms start at 269 sq ft (25 m²).
History
Valverde, green valley, was the old name for the land now covered by Avenida da Liberdade. The Marquis of Pombal laid out a walled public promenade here in the middle of the eighteenth century, a garden where the court came to display itself. In the nineteenth century the walls were swapped for iron railings and the promenade opened to everyone, filling with long summer afternoons, parties and shows, before the whole thing was torn down in the name of turning Lisbon into a larger, more European city. The hotel took the name of the vanished valley and built its entire concept on the memory of that lost avenue. The main house is a nineteenth-century building with the proportions of a London townhouse. Jose Pedro Vieira and Diogo Rosa La of Bastir, a Porto pair, restored it and shaped the interior architecture: Vieira on the creative side and running the remodelling, Rosa La on the technical development. Furniture and lighting were bought at auctions and antique shops, heavy on the 1950s, and set against deep-coloured walls, bright fabrics, art prints and eighteenth-century engravings, including a set of Raphael's Vatican loggias commissioned from Giovanni Volpato in 1776. In the Salao Valverde, tall columns in the middle of the room were designed to evoke the funnels of a 1920s cruise liner. The hotel opened in September 2014 with 25 bedrooms. Landscape architects Joao Bicho and Joana Carneiro designed the courtyard garden. A three-year expansion then merged two adjoining buildings on Rua de Sao Jose with the main house, one of them an 1889 building restored by the same architects, lifting the count to 48 rooms and suites, with a rooftop plunge pool added. Ten of the 22 original rooms face the patio with private balconies. It is a Relais and Chateaux member, and the only one in central Lisbon.
The setting
Avenida da Liberdade is Lisbon's grand boulevard, a kilometre and a half of plane trees, mosaic pavements and flagship stores running uphill from Restauradores to Marques de Pombal, and it is where the city keeps its luxury retail. The hotel's trick is that you cannot tell it is there: a plain door in the row, then a courtyard garden that the avenue's traffic never reaches. Restauradores and the Baixa grid are downhill, the Rossio and Praca do Comercio beyond that. Principe Real with its garden and design shops is a short climb west, Bairro Alto and Chiado a little further. The second entrance, on Rua de Sao Jose, opens onto a much quieter and more ordinary Lisbon street behind the boulevard.
Restaurants and bars
- Sitio — Restaurant · Author cuisine, colorful, with Cape Verdean influences (colo · Chef Carla Souza
Experiences
- Sitio restaurant — Restaurant Sitio, where chef Carla Souza serves colourful author cuisine with Cape Verdean influences.
- Live music in the inner garden — The hotel's interior garden is programmed with live music.
Amenities
- Interior garden where live music is programmed
- Art works hanging in the common areas
Open Valverde Lisboa Hotel & Garden, Relais & Chateaux in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
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