you are in: Historic buildings, Villas &...

 HISTORY OF THE VILLA
Cristoforo Benigno, an accountant in a textile firm of Busto Arsizio (a town in the province of Varese), saw Orta for the first time when he was a Lombard subject of Francesco Giuseppe, emperor of Austria and Hungary. Terrified by the idea of the military service he submitted himself to severe and cruel abstinence from food. His exaggerated diet caused him consumption and running down and the consequent declaration of unfitness for the military service at the call up visit. And as his physical conditions did not improve, he was recovered in a little village on Lake Orta called Pella, where his uncle lived and was known as a famous exorcist-healer. He took care of his nephew, submitting him to a strange therapy that consisted in putting large fillet steaks on his back twice a day. His health got better in a few time up to the point that he firmly believed in the curative effects of Lake Orta and its balsamic climate. So Cristoforo Benigno planned to set up a business in order to stay there permanently and founded a Cotonificio. Thanks to the help of a friend, who worked in the Stock Exchange, he stole some money from the cash of the firm where he worked and planned a risky undertaking , bearing in the Stock Exchange. The result was a win that allowed him to found the Cotonificio. He became a rich cotton industrial, fascinated by the charm of the East in Baghdad , where he used to buy cotton. He had a Moresque villa built in 1879 and during the eighteen years implied to build this Villa with its wonderful gardens sliding towards the lake. In the thirties the Villa, purchased by the Marchesi Fracassi di Torre Rossano, became a place of dwelling for poets, industry managers, princesses and monarchs (King Umberto di Savoia used to attend the Villa very often). In 1940 a very famous Italian film was filmed in this Villa. At the end of the Eighties the Villa, after having been a spiritual center for the Catholic Action, was transformed by the actual proprietor in an exclusive Hotel where nature, art and history are intertwined to offer to its guests a stay full of unforgettable feelings and recollections.
DESCRIPTION OF THE VILLA 
Located at the Lake Orta, in the heart of Piedmont, on the banks of one of the most charming Italian lakes and this fairy-tale Villa, stolen from a setting of "Thousand and one Nights". Furniture and paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, frescoed ceilings, refined bathrooms with Jacuzzi bath. Each room has its personality. All the rooms have a common royal atmosphere worthy of the eminent Guests who had a stay during the last few centuries. Great care for the slightest detail in the elegant restaurant that offers a sampling menu or a menu à la Carte with dishes inspired to the creative Mediterranean cooking, without forgetting regional and international specialities. Rich and exclusive wine list with more than five hundred labels. Evening events and the "Gastronomic weeks" will delight the restaurant.
 see rates