The five star Il Sereno hotel directly on the shoreline of Lake Como is already an enviable destination. A modernist-inspired building atop an old stone boathouse, this is a place to indulge, relax and engage the senses. For designer Patricia Urquiola and hoteliers Luis and Angelica Contreras this wasn’t enough. They’re keen for your ears to be massaged along with the rest of you. That’s why they’ve come up with a unique hotel experience boasting the highest of high end audio: the Darsena listening suite, now booking for your next Italian getaway.
The inspiration is the designated listening spaces that Luis Contreras experienced on his travels in Japan. Quiet spaces properly to experience the ritual of playing a record on a turntable. At the 40-suite Il Sereno, they’ve added a deluxe take on that concept to a hotel that already showcases the spectacular: a penthouse suite with landmark pieces of Italian design; a swim-up suite which you can reach directly from one of the hotel’s fleet of Riva speedboats.
Book the 200 m² Darsena suite and you’ll still arrive by speedboat if you choose. A glass wall showcases Lake Como. Step out with an espresso - the hotel has a Michelin-starred chef so the coffee is almost certainly acceptable - and there’s a long lakeside balcony. Inside you’ll notice textured walls, and perhaps acoustic fabrics that showcase soundproofed qualities that this suite boasts. But, honestly, you’re here for the audio equipment. And … wow.
“Going down the rabbit hole of high-end hi-fi,” says owner Luis Contreras, "was a lot of fun.” After deciding against a bespoke set-up and investigating totally vintage components, he settled on a more eclectic approach. Vintage designs, remade for the modern era. Klipsch speakers are brand new, from a design that dates back to 1938. Valve driven amplifier - the absolute holy grail for true audiophiles, with its green-glowing valves exposed - is a new piece by McIntosh, as is the equally analogue pre-amp.
Centrepiece, though, is a properly vintage Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape recorder/player, the one exception to the buy-new rule that Contreras settled on. These were standard equipment in recording studios and for radio broadcasters until the digital era swept them away. Not this one, fully refurbished and ready for the switch-on, as if you’re a character in a 1970s penthouse with deep pile carpeting, of the sort that Il Sereno certainly doesn’t have.
We’re already ahead of you here. Of course we want to stay. There’s a whole library of vinyl to investigate. We’d be more than happy to spend the whole weekend - a whole week would be pushing it, perhaps - in the Darsena listening suite, comparing recordings of Ella Fitzgerald. As you’ll already have expected, this is not going to be a cheap experience: the suite costs £9,141,25 a night. But that does include breakfast, so at least you’ve saved on that. We’ll bring our own vinyl for sunset cocktails.
Next up: A modernist city retreat by Casas de México.
