Because the co-owner and managing director of Ravello’s glamorous Palazzo Avino, Mariella Avino is well-versed in all issues journey and design. The Italian hotelier is concerned in each side of the Amalfi Coast property, from researching and creating the exact pink-and-white striped classic umbrellas to make use of within the pool space, to sourcing paintings, to deciding on the merchandise for the lodge’s on-site boutique, The Pink Closet, which opened in 2019.
Whereas hospitality is in Avino’s blood, she did not be part of the lodge in an official capability till 2011. “Deep down, I all the time knew that my path would finally lead me to the lodge,” Avino tells Observer. Her father bought the property in 1995, and subsequently accomplished two years’ price of renovations earlier than opening Palazzo Avino as a lodge in 1997. “Yr after yr, there have been totally different additions and renovations—the spa, the gardens, the swimming pool. In 2009, we opened the seashore membership. It is a undertaking of affection—yearly, we add bits and items to it,” Avino, who runs the lodge together with her sister, Attilia, shares.
Two years in the past, they renovated Rossellini’s, the Main Lodge of the World‘s Michelin-starred restaurant, and final yr, they renovated the within bar, Caffè dell’Arte, and refreshed a few of the public areas by reception, including rattan furnishings and loads of vegetation. Avino traveled to a gallery in Naples to supply paintings, and chosen a Joseph Kosuth piece with 18 neon indicators, which is now completely put in within the lodge.
“We attempt to be according to our historical past, and respect that in our renovations,” Avino says. “The lodge now has a really particular identification.” On a current journey to the 42-room lodge, I—like just about each different visitor on the property—discovered myself snapping picture after picture of the unapologetically pink decor, notably the pink-and-white umbrellas. The aesthetic has grow to be so synonymous with the lodge and the world, I assumed they’d been there for many years, however Mariella knowledgeable me that they are really a comparatively new addition to the property, from throughout the final 5 years. She had been researching classic umbrellas, and fell in love with one specific fashion, however confronted one other hurdle when it got here to truly creating them. “It was not straightforward to search out an artisan who may make them—they’ve a particular design, however they’re particular; they’re made with wooden, not metal or a better materials. However I simply cherished the aesthetic,” she shares, and was in a position to take the time to correctly supply and create the umbrellas.
It is that spotlight to element that helps Palazzo Avino stand out, even among the many glitzy resorts that dot the Amalfi Coast panorama. The lodge has amassed a devoted following of in-the-know jet-setters, a lot of whom eagerly flock to the property summer time after summer time, sharing images of these now-iconic pink-and-white umbrellas and solar loungers.
Avino takes a equally detail-forward method with the Pink Closet. “I all the time had a really robust ardour for vogue, together with journey and the journey trade. All through the years, on each enterprise journey, I’d take a few days to analysis native designers. I knew in my thoughts I all the time needed to have a boutique,” Avino tells Observer. Whereas the lodge already operated a small pop-up store, it wasn’t sufficiently big for what Avino had in thoughts, and he or she waited for the best house to actually convey her imaginative and prescient to life.
“I used to be a bit caught,” she admits. “Then, in 2018, the artwork gallery proper in entrance of Palazzo Avino went on the market. I stated to my dad, ‘Let’s purchase the house and do one thing with it.'” The household bought the gallery house, and Mariella instantly started researching architects. She selected Cristina Celestino, who had labored with Fendi and Sergio Rossi, and who had, as Avino places it, “a really good pink contact in her works.” The Pink Closet opened the next yr, and it shortly grew to become fashionable each with lodge friends and different vacationers to the world. Avino takes inspiration from her travels and on-line analysis, perusing Instagram and searching into small designers. She’s an envoy of the Digicam della Moda vogue belief, and sources from their record of younger designers, as nicely.
Palazzo Avino will shut from October by means of April, however that does not imply Mariella is taking time without work. This low season, the sisters are engaged on the on-site cooking faculty, which Avino is hopeful will debut subsequent yr. “Yearly we attempt to discover one matter greater than one other. It is good to write down a unique chapter within the story yearly,” she explains. As Avino comes off one other profitable summer time, she sat down with Observer to share her present necessities, from her go-to Amalfi Coast pastry store to what’s in her journey bag.
