Close your eyes and dream. Imagine a building in a Moresque style with a minaret and an internal design that reminds the abode of an emirate. And also elegant engravings in damascus style, arches in the shape of a horseshoe, frescoes ceilings in turquoise as the domes of the magical Orient.  However, glancing from the mullioned windows of this fascinating building we neither see sand dunes nor perceive the colours and aromas of the oriental baazars, but through the larch woods appears a clear vision of a lake: Lake Orta.
 
After 120 years from its foundation, Villa Crespi still keeps untouched its charm even after a skilful refurbishment. The new hotel management, under the direction of the Primatesta family, has not neglected the slightest detail to render this 'house' much more exclusive: a high level staff, a renowned restaurant and a wine list with more than five hundred labels.  The hotel is a few minutes from the centre of Orta , it is immersed in a centuries-old park that lies on the shores of the lake and it offers you six rooms and eight suites.
 

History

We are 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', is nothing but a dream coming from a passion for the East.  That of Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, an accountant in a textile firm of Busto Arsizio (a town in the province of Varese).  He 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, in spite of doctors’ and relatives’ assistance, 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. Crespi’s 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.  After falling in love with the daughter of his employer, he asked to marry her, but, because of his economic conditions, he was rejected by the father.

So the young man, to fulfil his love dream, planned to set up a business in order to get married and founded the Cotonificio Crespi. Thanks to the help of a friend, who worked in the Stock Exchange, Cristoforo Benigno 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 Crespi.

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 by the architect Angelo Colla.
During the eighteen years implied to build Villa Crespi and after Mr. Colla’ s death, the architect Talamoni became the building director; he also directed the planning of the wonderful gardens sliding towards the lake. 

In the thirties Villa Crespi, 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 Villa Crespi; the title was 'Una romantica avventura '(a romantic adventure')  and it was directed by Mario Camerini and interpreted by Assia Noris, Gino Cervi and Leonardo Cortese.

At the end of the Eighties Villa Crespi, after having been a spiritual centre 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.