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A Visit to ARIA Retreat & Spa
An Italian lake side retreat with an eye for design Like many lakeside roads in Europe that pass through blink-and-you-miss-it villages, the SS340 hugs the curves of Lake Lugano as it traverses …
An Italian lake side retreat with an eye for design
A Visit to ARIA Retreat & Spa
An Italian lake side retreat with an eye for design
Like many lakeside roads in Europe that pass through blink-and-you-miss-it villages, the SS340 hugs the curves of Lake Lugano as it traverses Switzerland and Italy. Perched above the road outside of Cima di Porlezza, sits ARIA Retreat & Spa. 
“I wanted to create a can’t-miss destination for art, design and wellness,” Eva Schwenn told Cool Hunting. She and Hartmut, her co-investor and co-owner, started with Parco San Marco Hotels & Beach Resort around 2000 on a piece of land set at the foothill of Mount Bronzone and overlooking the Lepontine Alps. When the project was completed, Schwenn knew she wasn’t done. Over two decades of contemplation passed.
“After 20+ years you grow and design changes,” Schwenn said, adding, “you don’t wear the clothes you wore 25 years ago, so we decided to do something very different. I wanted something modern and special.”
ARIA Retreat & Spa is a 15-suite hotel inside the Parco San Marco Hotels & Beach Resort, purpose-built with low environmental impact. “The façade alone is a work of art; it is covered by Lapitec (a non-porous sintered stone slab) to avoid seeing drainage pipes, and with no need of being painting in the future. The balconies we designed previously were made with glass; if it rains you see the drops, if it’s hotter behind the glass you see it. This way of making balconies with rope is modern, and makes the fences invisible at ARIA,” she said.
From the hay sauna to “our regard for the art, where we preferred not to overload the suites with insignificant paintings because the main art is framed by the window; it is the lake and mountains you can see from your bed, from your living room,” to the house-made infusions and gins like the Premium ARIA Pink Gin, ARIA “had to tell a story that could only happen here.”
With unadulterated views of Lake Lugano, the quieter, smaller and locally-beloved sibling of Lake Como, each of the 15 suites within the boutique hotel are designed uniquely. “No suite is the same but each one should feel like home. They all have classy furniture that we wanted to clearly be made from an Italian designer with a quality that was not only seen but felt,” said Schwenn.
She easily rattled off the names of nearly two dozen designers: Lualdi, Valcucine, Zanotta, Mogg, Catelan, Lema, Gervasoni, Patricia Urquiola, Flou, Flexform, Poliform, Dedon, Gloster, Gaetano, Pesce, Flos, Lago, Artelinea, and Varaschin before simply saying “I sourced furniture from everywhere that was Italian and design forward.” Constructed by Milan-based architecture firm R4M Engineering, the hotel’s first terrace houses the indoor pool and outdoor saline infinity pool, while the middle level holds the duo of saunas (Finnish and hay) as well as the Turkish bath, and the top floor boasts the Garden Suite and its accompanying private garden. Suites occupy all three floors.
Though it opened in the spring of 2022, ARIA didn’t end up welcoming its first guests until nearly a year later due to the pandemic. In that time, Schwenn delved deeper into the exterior art. Parco San Marco has long welcomed artists from around the world to exhibit in the resort’s 60 acres of subtropical park.
Beginning with Roberto Bricalli’s Carrara marble faces in 2001, to the Swiss Rudolf Tschudin in 2005, iron sculptor Housi Knecht in 2010, Rosy Maccaronio’s marble craft in 2014, Carlo Baldessari and Claudio Lugli’s 2018 metal and glass to Anacleto Spazzapan’s iron rod art in 2023, to name a few, the Schwenn’s “want to appeal to architects and design fans.”
Merging the older Parco San Marco with the new ARIA is a scenic underground passageway inside the fifty-meter-long mountain, lit with RGB lights controlled by a DMX system programmed to cycle through dynamic lighting sequences. “I want everything to be interesting,” she said. “I want a hallway to be interesting. I want it to make you feel. I want it to be art.”
“I live very close to Parco San Marco but there is something about stepping onto the property, when you are on the balconies of ARIA and the beauty is there, the stress isn’t, and all of the people are in Lake Como looking for George Clooney and you have the lake all to yourself, there is something special that happens,” Schwenn said, finishing her thought, “the design amplifies that.” 
Although ARIA has La Musa Restaurant & Rooftop Terrace fine dining restaurant as well as lounge bar Dolce Vita Lounge & Terrace, the larger Parco San Marco (accessible via the passageway) offers access to an additional five restaurants and as many swimming pools as well as a private beach, fitness center and tennis courts.
Interview edited for clarity
