Villa Igiea

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This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)

Villa Igiea stands on the coastline, above Acquasanta harbour and behind the impressive Mount Pellegrino; the villa is currently a luxury hotel.

Dating back to 1899, this noble abode was commissioned by the wealthy Florio family from Palermo to the famous architect Ernesto Basile (1857-1932), the protagonist of the Liberty style movement in Italy – he was actually asked to build to a sanatorium along the cliff.
The following year, the project was modified and the original building was converted into the Grand Hotel Villa Igiea.

The villa immediately became a popular attraction for anybody visiting this Mediterranean area.
Both the building and the garden still retains the once highly-acclaimed Liberty style. Outside, the villa was designed as a castle with turrets and battlements, while inside it was painstakingly decorated with precious furnishings and several frescoes such as that representing the four seasons.
The same attention to details was paid when choosing and designing the artefacts placed in the garden: lamp posts, seats, the staircase, and a wrought-iron pergola at the entrance, partly covered with bougainvillaea.

THE PARK

The park is made of lawns and terraces, as it happens in the typical English gardens; here, everything has been arranged in order to emphasize the sloping ground.
On the south-east and north-east sides, there is a terraced garden which follows the morphology of the cliff as you get closer to the sea.
Nothing remains of the original park but the ruins of a small temple perfectly blended with the terraces and serving as a nice lookout.

On the other hand, the Italian garden can be found along the avenue that connects the hotel to the belvedere overlooking the sea. On the sides of one of the other two paths that connect the hotel with the terraces, there is a grove of holm oaks (Quercus ilex), and one of Aleppo pines (Pinus halepensis ).
In the remaining portion of the park, there are Cycas revoluta, Ficus benjamina, Pittosporum tobira, and Duranda plumieri.

There are also many palms such as Phoenix dactylifera, Livistona chinensis, Washingtonia filifera, and Phoenix canariensis. Succulent species are present as well, such as Agave americana, Carpobrotus acinaciformis, and Opuntia ficus-indica, a species of ancient origins. All in all, the garden may seem “Mexican” at first glance but truly represents the typical Sicilian landscape.

There are many Mediterranean essences, mixed with exotic ones, such as Tecoma capensis, in the variegated grove on the north side of the garden

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)