· 6 min read · by Salimar Boat Tour
Villa Fontanelle, Versace's house in Moltrasio
Leaving Cernobbio towards Moltrasio you meet a four-storey yellow building that comes right down to the water, with a garden climbing behind it. This is Villa Fontanelle, for twenty years Gianni Versace's house on Lake Como, and still one of the villas passengers ask about most.
An Englishman and an abandoned quarry
The villa was built in the first half of the 19th century by an eccentric Englishman, Lord Charles Currie. The story goes that he could not find a villa for sale on the lake, so he built his own, choosing the site of an old moltrasina stone quarry. Sources disagree on the exact year and even on his first name: the best-supported version remains "Lord Charles Currie, first half of the 19th century".
Before Versace the villa belonged to the Besana family of Milan — Antonio Besana was a friend of Giuseppe Verdi — and, according to some sources, to the Cambiaghi family.
The Versace years
Gianni Versace bought it in 1977 when it stood abandoned and restored it until December 1980, returning it to neoclassical and Empire style. He filled it with hundreds of oil paintings he chose himself. The gardens were designed by the English art historian and landscape gardener Sir Roy Strong, who also worked for Versace at Casa Casuarina in Miami.
Documented guests include Elton John, Sting, Madonna and Princess Diana. In 2001 Jennifer Lopez spent her honeymoon here with Cris Judd.
The auction and the sale
After Versace's murder in 1997 the villa was largely unused. In March 2009 Sotheby's in London auctioned its contents: 545 lots that fetched 7.4 million pounds against a top pre-sale estimate of 2.8 million. The top lots were a pair of cherrywood bookcases by Karl Roos, commissioned for Pauline Borghese, sold for 601,250 and 481,250 pounds.
In 2008 the House of Versace had already sold the villa to Arkady Novikov, a Russian restaurateur, for 26 million pounds according to the Sunday Times. Novikov then spent a further 4-5 million euros on the interiors, working with Milanese architect Claudio Pozza.
What it looks like
- Four storeys, yellow neoclassical building at the water's edge
- About 1.2 hectares of ornamental gardens and three cottages
- A tennis court and a private mooring
- Roughly 800 metres of lake frontage
Can you visit it?
No. A municipal covenant requires it to remain a private residence: it cannot become a hotel or any kind of accommodation. There are no tours and no public rates. It is clearly visible from the water, cruising between Cernobbio and Moltrasio.
A little-known detail
Versace reportedly wanted to be buried in a chapel in the villa's grounds. His ashes instead rest in a family vault at the Moltrasio cemetery, less than a mile from here, in a chapel lent by a local family.
