Grand Hotel Boarezzo: past, present and future.
3 min read
Hotel Boarezzo ©️AnyaPh
This is the Story of the “Grand Hotel of Boarezzo”, also known as “Albergo Piambello”, an hyperbole that starts in the 20s of the last century, wanted and built in the 20s by Giovanni Chini, also called “the artist of the cement”, who also decorated the sumptuous gallery of the Central Station of Milan and the Maritime Station of the Ponte dei Mille in Genoa.
The hotel had 70 rooms with a dining room that can accommodate over 200 people. In the lower part of the hotel (built with three floors) there was a large garage, now a woodshed, while in the park there was also a tennis court and a billiard room.
The period of greatest splendor of the hotel was in the 30s, and before the war its rooms were always full, especially for summer holidays. In these years, going to Boarezzo from Milan was considered a real vacation as tourists had to take the train that would take them to their destination.
After the war, instead, the Italian crisis and the war effort: in Boarezzo an armament company moved to Varese, to produce bullets for the army. Also the Ducati company moved here from Bologna, producing radio transmitters and bullets too. The Ducati Brothers were accused of collaborating with the Nazis and the employees burned the documents on Mount Pianbello. Later the company was transferred to Milan where it began producing the motorbikes we all know.
Thus the 2nd world war has decreed the end of the hotel, that suffers the competition of the economic boom, and italians preferred spend the holiday to the seaside.
In 1970 the hotel closed for a bankruptcy.
Now both the hotel and the buildings that housed the Ducati employees and the hotel staff are abandoned, but guarded by Mr. Osvaldo, the guardian of the structure.
Speaking with him, I know that probably soon the site will be restored to become a nursing home for the elderly. All this could repopulate Boarezzo and give it all the value it deserves, because it is a real pleasure to walk around its narrow deserted streets and admire the many illustrations on the walls of the houses.
