Art Hotels

Il Sereno sits right on the water at Torno, on the quieter eastern shore of Lake Como. Every suite faces the lake. That was the brief, and the building follows it without exception.

Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola handled the architecture's interiors down to the furniture, and the result is calm rather than showy: walnut, stone, bronze and a lot of glass. Botanist Patrick Blanc added living vertical gardens to the exterior walls, so the facade changes colour with the seasons. Arrival by boat is common here — the lake remains the easiest road.

Picture a nineteenth-century villa on a hilltop near Palaia, with vineyards, olive groves and an organic kitchen garden spread across the estate below.

What sets Villa Lena apart is its residency programme. Artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers come to live and work on the property for weeks at a time, and their studios, open days and finished pieces become part of the guest experience. Rooms are spread between the main villa and converted farm buildings. The pace is deliberately slow; the estate still works as a farm, and meals draw heavily on what it grows.

Opened in 1910 on Boulevard Raspail, the Lutetia is the grand hotel of the Left Bank. Its facade mixes late Art Nouveau curves with early Art Deco lines, and it has long been linked with the writers, painters and musicians of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

A multi-year restoration led by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte reopened the hotel in 2018. Layers of paint were removed to reveal original frescoes in the bar, now named Bar Joséphine after Josephine Baker. The history is not all glamour: in 1945 the building served as a reception centre for people returning from the camps, and the hotel acknowledges that chapter openly.