Villa Cora

The Viale Machiavelli winds up the hill of the Oltrarno in Florence between walls and cypresses, and halfway along it a gate opens onto a garden with a villa of the 1860s at its centre. Villa Cora was built for Baron Gustave Oppenheim, a banker, in the years when Florence was the capital of Italy and bankers built on its southern hills. A decade later the Empress Eugénie, widow of Napoleon III, rented it for a stay away from Paris. The hotel that occupies it now reopened in 2010 after four years of restoration.

History

Oppenheim commissioned the villa around 1868 for his wife and filled it with the decoration of the time: frescoed ceilings, a ballroom in the Moorish taste, a hall of mirrors, marble and gilding. The couple's marriage did not last, and the house was sold. Eugénie's stay in the 1870s gave the villa its most famous resident. It passed through other hands, was used as a hotel for part of the twentieth century and closed before the restoration that began in 2006. The owners, the Whythebest Hotels group, reopened it in 2010 as a 46-room hotel with the original decoration returned to view.

Architecture and design

The villa is a neo-classical block of three storeys with a belvedere on the roof, set in a garden of about a hectare that descends in terraces towards the city. Inside, the ground-floor salons keep their nineteenth-century schemes: the Moorish ballroom with its horseshoe arches and painted ceiling, the Hall of Mirrors, the frescoed reception rooms and a double staircase. The restoration cleaned the frescoes and gilding and replaced the services, and the bedrooms were refitted in a style that follows the house rather than the moment. From the belvedere and the top-floor rooms the view takes in the Duomo and the whole of Florence.

Rooms and suites

There are 46 rooms and suites across the main villa and two smaller buildings in the garden. The grandest suites are on the piano nobile with frescoed ceilings and views towards the city; the garden rooms are quieter and open onto the lawns. All are furnished in period style with silk, damask and marble bathrooms.

Dining

Le Bistrot, the hotel restaurant, serves Tuscan and Italian dishes in the garden pavilion and on the terrace by the pool in summer. The bar occupies one of the frescoed salons, and the belvedere on the roof is opened for drinks at sunset with the city below.

Wellness

The heated outdoor pool in the garden is rare in Florence, where few hotels have the space; it stays open through the cooler months. A small spa in the lower floor has treatment rooms, a hammam and a fitness room.

Weddings and events

Villa Cora is one of the few hotels in the city with a ballroom and a garden of its own, and it takes weddings, receptions and seminars throughout the year. The Moorish ballroom and the Hall of Mirrors host ceremonies and dinners; the garden terraces and the pool lawn take receptions in summer. Companies use the salons for meetings of a few dozen. Capacities for each room are confirmed by the hotel's events office.

Location

The villa stands on the Viale Machiavelli in the Oltrarno, above the Boboli Gardens and the Porta Romana, about 20 minutes on foot from the Ponte Vecchio down the hill, or a few minutes by the hotel's shuttle. The Piazzale Michelangelo is a short drive along the same avenue. Florence Peretola airport is about 25 minutes by car and Santa Maria Novella station 15 minutes. Of the luxury hotels in Florence, Villa Cora is the one with the largest garden inside the city.