An Italian Masterpiece: Lake Como’s Passalacqua is one of the most beautiful houses in Italy

There’s a moment, on entering the suite, where the mind considers whether the clock’s been wound back a couple of centuries, to a time of composers penning operas and couples declaring love beneath the glow of a full moon.

La Sonnambula drifts from the stereo as we open the shutters and look out across Lake Como. The suite is undeniably beautiful — all marble, mirrors and silk — yet what strikes most is how personal it feels. There are no obvious signs that guests have slept here before. Instead, it’s as though ROAM has been handed the keys to somebody’s impossibly elegant home while they’re away for the weekend.

It doesn’t take long to start romanticising your own life at Passalacqua. Then again, people have been coming here in search of inspiration for more than two centuries.

Long before it became one of the world’s most celebrated hotels, this was a place where artists, musicians and aristocrats came to escape the demands of everyday life. That spirit remains remarkably intact. While many luxury hotels spend fortunes attempting to create a sense of place, Passalacqua already possessed one. The challenge was simply preserving it. Then again, Lake Como has always had that effect on people.

Count Andrea Lucini Passalacqua certainly felt it. In 1787, he commissioned the construction of this magnificent residence in Moltrasio, working alongside architect Felice Soave and designer Giocondo Albertolli to create one of the grandest private homes on these shores. The setting alone would have justified the investment. Mountains tumble towards the water, villages cling to steep hillsides and church towers rise above terracotta rooftops, while changing light continually transforms the landscape throughout the day.

The house soon became a gathering place for notable visitors. Among them was composer Vincenzo Bellini, who arrived in 1829 and became so enchanted by the setting that he extended his stay for months, working on both Norma and La Sonnambula while overlooking the same stretch of water that guests admire today.

Some 200 years later, the room where he stayed and worked is named in his honour, although Passalacqua resists the temptation to make too much of the connection. Like everything here, the history is worn lightly. References to Bellini appear subtly throughout the property, serving as a reminder that long before travellers arrived in search of Lake Como glamour, artists came for inspiration.

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For most of its existence, Passalacqua remained exactly what it was built to be — a private home. The estate passed from the Passalacqua family through a succession of owners, including a Swedish baroness, a Hungarian philosopher and an American banker whose passion for gardening helped restore the grounds along formal 18th-century lines. By the time it appeared at a Sotheby’s auction in 2018, however, its future was far from certain. Enter the De Santis family.

On Lake Como, Paolo and Antonella De Santis, together with their daughter Valentina, are hospitality royalty. Their nearby Grand Hotel Tremezzo has long been regarded as one of Italy’s great stays, yet Passalacqua represented something entirely different. This wasn’t simply another luxury property — it’s one of the most extraordinary private houses in the country.

The family purchased the estate and embarked on a restoration that reportedly took three years and cost about €20 million ($33m). Yet unlike many heritage projects, the goal was never perfection in the conventional sense. They weren’t trying to create a museum or a polished replica of aristocratic life. They wanted the house to feel alive. That distinction matters.

Many heritage hotels are beautiful, but few feel personal. Passalacqua somehow manages both.

Frescoes were carefully restored, architectural details revived and antiques, artworks and furnishings sourced from across Italy. Years were spent trawling auction houses, antique markets and private collections in search of pieces that felt as though they belonged here. Hand-blown Murano chandeliers hang above marble fireplaces. Florentine bronze light fittings sit alongside antique paintings and rare rugs. Marble sourced from quarries stretching from Carrara to Sicily appears throughout the property. The result is not ostentatious so much as obsessive. Every detail feels considered. Every object appears to have a story.

The main villa contains 12 of the property’s 24 suites and remains the star of the show. Behind its pale amber facade are soaring ceilings adorned with original frescoes, elaborate stucco work and some of the most impressive examples of Italian artisanship we’ve encountered in a hotel. The remaining accommodation is divided between the Palazz, created from former stables behind the house, and Casa al Lago, a four-suite residence positioned closest to the shoreline.

ROAM’s suite feels like a celebration of craftsmanship. Hand-painted Como silks soften the walls. Mirrored Barbini cabinets catch shifting reflections from the water. Fortuny lamps glow softly in corners, while vintage steamer trunks conceal televisions that would otherwise interrupt the illusion. Original carvings frame the ceiling overhead and the bathroom is lined with rose-toned marble, its shuttered windows dressed in silk. It is undeniably grand, yet there is warmth too.

A quick unpack becomes half an hour spent gazing out the window. A bath becomes an event. A pre-dinner drink stretches comfortably towards sunset. That same feeling extends throughout the house. Books rest casually on tables. Fresh flowers appear in unexpected places. Conversations drift between rooms. There are grand salons and intimate corners, formal dining spaces and hidden reading nooks. Despite the extraordinary level of decoration, the atmosphere never feels precious.

Outside, three hectares of terraced gardens cascade towards the water through olive groves, magnolia, mimosa, jasmine and David Austin roses. Ancient cedars of Lebanon cast shade across winding pebble paths, while grand staircases and fountains hint at the scale of the original vision.

The elegant sage-hued greenhouse overlooking the swimming terrace has become one of Passalacqua’s most photographed spaces. Surrounded by floral parasols and gardens spilling towards the shoreline, it provides a playful counterpoint to the more formal interiors above.

At dawn, before ferries begin tracing their daily routes across the water, the estate feels almost entirely private.

The in-house florist gathers blooms from the gardens each morning. Later, those flowers appear throughout the property – on breakfast tables, beside bathtubs and tucked beside rolled pool towels. It’s a small touch, yet one that captures the extraordinary attention to detail that defines the experience. Eventually, however, the water calls.

At the foot of the gardens, vintage wooden boats wait at the private dock. From the water, Passalacqua reveals itself in full, rising above terraces, fountains and staircases. Around every bend appears another postcard scene: ochre-coloured villages, cypress-lined estates and bell towers perched above the trees. Back at the dock, guests are ferried uphill in a vintage Fiat 500 transformed into an electric buggy and painted the colour of an Aperol Spritz – a detail so delightfully Italian it feels almost fictional.

The Italians have a word for the pace of life encouraged here: villeggiatura. More than a holiday, it describes the tradition of retreating somewhere beautiful and allowing yourself to simply exist there. It is the art of stretching lunch into the afternoon, spending hours reading beneath a tree and ordering another coffee simply because there is no pressing reason not to. Passalacqua seems purpose-built for such.

Guests spend entire afternoons by the pool, in the gardens or wandering the grounds. Some disappear with books. Others linger over aperitivo. Time slows, almost imperceptibly.

Even the spa embraces that philosophy. Hidden within historic tunnels and vaulted chambers beneath the estate, it now houses treatment rooms, wellness facilities and atmospheric underground passageways that snake beneath the property towards the water.

As evening settles over Como, guests gather on the terrace for aperitivo while boats make their final crossings and the mountains fade from green to blue, then grey. Dinner follows at restaurant Sala Ovale, beneath frescoed gods and goddesses, where the approach to food mirrors the rest of the property – thoughtful, elegant and deeply rooted in Italian domestic traditions. Think lamb with radicchio, almonds and oranges. Or croaker fish beside locally foraged mushrooms and a shaving of Alba truffles when in season.

The following morning, breakfast begins in an expansive open-kitchen buffet with piles of just-baked panini and croissants, charcuterie and glistening fruits. Eggs are made to order, drizzled with house-made olive oil, and delivered to our table on the terrace with a flute of prosecco.

Garden roses sit in small glass vases. Staff quietly reset tables for another day. Another boat glides across the water below, barely a ripple behind. And somewhere inside the house Bellini plays from the speakers. The remarkable thing about Passalacqua is that, despite everything that’s happened here over the past 235 years, it still feels as though the owners might walk through the front door at any moment. passalacqua.it