ITALY’S BEAUTIFULLY IMPERFECT HOTELS
Hotels have always been part of Emanuel Sax's life. Growing up, family holidays meant long drives through Italy, nights spent in grand hotels, roadside motels, mountain pensions, and slightly faded seaside resorts. Years later, after a career in hospitality and now through his creative practice, Studio Sucks, he still finds himself drawn to the same kinds of places.
Not because they are perfect. Quite the opposite.
He is interested in hotels that already carry a story. Places where little has been erased, where time has left visible traces, and where the character comes from years of guests rather than years of branding. Some are beautifully maintained. Others are waiting for someone to see their potential. All of them have something that cannot easily be designed from scratch.
His work often begins with what already exists. Rather than replacing a place's identity, he looks for ways to continue it. Italy offers countless examples. Former grand hotels, family-run mountain inns, overlooked roadside properties, and beach hotels that quietly hold decades of collective memory. They remind us of childhood holidays, summer rituals, and journeys repeated over generations.
The hotels below are places he believes deserve another look.
Pensione Seguso in Venezia. Maybe the best kept secret. Like stepping into a time capsule. Nothing should ever change!
Splendid Hotel La Torre. Found this cliffside hotel in Mondello. Still feels like 60s simple beach vacation. Needs development, but could be a real gem!
Grand Hotel Elite. Not elite anymore. A forgotten 70s Grand hotel in Bologna. Clearly rundown, but with huge potential. Rates are 60 Euro right now.
Grand Hotel Exelsior in San Benedetto del Tronto. My recent find. A beachside forgotten Grand Hotel with its own beach club. Unfortunately, some things were already redone in a wrong way.
Grand Hotel Villa Politi in Siracusa, Sicily. My parents stayed here in the 90s and nothing changed. Now more a hotel for seasonal craftsmen, it maybe has the highest potential. Everything still screams Grand Hotel.
Hotel Kaos in Agrigento, Sicily. Real Chaos. Abandoned for years, there is some development now. However, maybe not in the right direction. Used to be a wedding hotel. The big stairs feels like a Jacquemus runway
Emanuel is currently working on Villa Albertini, a historic villa in Italy's Aosta Valley, together with the family who owns it.
The goal is to transform it into a place for hospitality and culture, while keeping the character of the house intact. Very little has changed over the years, and everywhere you look there are traces of the people who lived there before, old photographs, souvenirs, handwritten notes, and everyday objects collected over generations.
