J.K. Place Capri

Most hotels on Capri climb to the town or to Anacapri. J.K. Place Capri does the opposite. It stands on the road above Marina Grande, the island's harbour, with the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius straight ahead and the funicular to the Piazzetta a few minutes down the hill. Ori Kafri opened it in 2007 in a 19th-century villa, four years after the first J.K. Place in Florence.

History

J.K. Place began in 2003 in Florence, on Piazza Santa Maria Novella, as a townhouse hotel of 20 rooms designed by Michele Bönan for the Kafri family. The idea was a hotel that behaved like a private house, with a library, a fireplace and a long table for breakfast, and it travelled. Capri came in 2007, Rome followed in 2013 on Via di Monte d'Oro, and Paris in 2020 on the Rue de Lille. The Capri house took a villa built in the 19th century above the port, one of the few hotel sites on the island with the sea directly below rather than a view across the roofs.

Architecture and design

Bönan designed the interiors around white and blue, with Lucite, rattan, 1950s and 1960s chairs, lamps made from shells and coral, and framed photographs from the island's years as a film set. The library has a fireplace for the shoulder seasons. The terrace carries the pool, heated, with the port and the mainland in front of it, and the lower terraces step down towards the water. The whole house reads as a villa rather than a hotel, which was the brief.

Rooms and suites

There are 22 rooms and suites, most with a terrace or balcony facing the sea. Sizes are those of a villa, not a resort, and the suites on the top floor have the widest views. Bathrooms are marble, beds are high and the colours stay pale.

Dining

JKitchen, the restaurant, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner on the terrace and inside, with a Mediterranean menu built on fish and vegetables from the mainland and the island. The bar runs along the terrace through the evening. The house is small enough that the kitchen will cook what a guest asks for, within reason. Breakfast on the terrace, with the first ferries coming in below, is the hour the house is designed around.

Wellness

A small spa with treatment rooms and a gym sits below the terrace, and the pool is the centre of the day. Boats can be arranged from the harbour below for a swim off the rocks or a circuit of the island.

Weddings and events

With 22 rooms the house is taken whole for a wedding, with the ceremony and reception on the pool terrace above the port and dinner at JKitchen. There are no meeting rooms; a company that wants the house for a retreat takes it entire.

Location

Marina Grande is where every ferry and hydrofoil lands. Hydrofoils from Naples take about 50 minutes and boats from Sorrento about 25, and the hotel is a few minutes from the quay by taxi or the hotel's car. Taxis on Capri are open-topped and in short supply in August, so the hotel's own car is the simpler way up and down. The funicular from the port to the Piazzetta runs through the day, and the road to Anacapri starts at the harbour. Naples airport is the nearest, with a transfer to the port at Molo Beverello. The house closes in winter and opens for the season in spring. Among luxury hotels in Capri it is the one with the sea at its feet.