Verdura Resort

The coast road east of Sciacca, the SS115, runs between citrus groves and the sea for some fifteen kilometres before a gate opens onto Verdura Resort, a luxury resort on Sicily's south coast and the largest property in the Rocco Forte collection. Sir Rocco Forte and his sister Olga Polizzi opened it in 2009 on 230 hectares of former farmland in the province of Agrigento. The land is flat and open, with 1.8 kilometres of its own shoreline and nothing between the bedrooms and the water.

History

Until Verdura, Rocco Forte Hotels was a group of city houses: Brown's in London, the Savoy in Florence, the Hotel de Rome in Berlin. The Sicilian estate was its first resort and its first building raised from the ground up. The land, planted with oranges and olives, was assembled in the early 2000s, and the golf courses were laid out while the hotel was still under construction. The resort opened in 2009. Private villas with their own pools followed on the estate a decade later, sold and let under the Rocco Forte name. Google has held its invitation-only Camp gathering at Verdura in several summers since 2012.

Architecture and design

The architect Flavio Albanese kept every building low, so that the roofs sit below the tree line and the estate reads as landscape rather than hotel. The materials are local: tufa stone, terracotta, timber shutters, dry-stone walls. Olga Polizzi, the group's director of design, handled the interiors with the restraint that marks each Rocco Forte house, pale rooms with Sicilian ceramics and woven fabrics in place of ornament. The main pool is a long infinity pool set parallel to the beach, and paths lead through the gardens down to the shore.

Rooms and suites

The resort has 203 rooms and suites, every one of them facing the sea, with a private terrace or a garden at ground level. The larger suites add separate living rooms and terraces of their own. The private villas on the estate, with between two and five bedrooms, pools and staff, are let with full access to the resort's restaurants, spa and courses.

Dining

Zagara, in the main building, serves Sicilian dishes. Amare is the seafood restaurant beside the beach, and Liolà a trattoria with a wood-fired pizza oven. Buongiorno serves breakfast. The olive oil, the oranges and much of the fruit and vegetables come from the estate, which keeps its groves in production.

Wellness

The Verdura Spa covers 4,000 square metres and is built around four thalassotherapy pools of differing temperature and salinity, filled with sea water. There are treatment rooms, a hammam, steam rooms and a gym. Sport takes up more of the estate than the spa does: two 18-hole championship courses and a nine-hole par-three course, all designed by Kyle Phillips, a tennis academy on clay courts and a full-size football pitch used by professional clubs for training camps.

Weddings and events

Verdura hosts weddings and corporate gatherings. The conference centre, set apart from the guest areas, has a divisible ballroom and a run of smaller meeting rooms. The lawns above the beach and the terrace at Amare are used for ceremonies and dinners, and the villas allow a wedding party to take over a corner of the estate for several days.

Location

Sciacca, a fishing town with thermal springs, is 15 kilometres to the west. The Greek temples at Agrigento are about an hour's drive east and Selinunte about 45 minutes west. Palermo airport is roughly two hours by car; Catania airport about two and a half. There is no railway station nearby; the resort is reached by car or by the transfers it arranges.