A nineteenth-century house beside the Grand Hotel Timeo has come back as a stand-alone wing. Twenty-one keys, one infinity pool, a designer from Paris, the Greek theatre in the foreground.
Villa Timeo sits a few steps from the Grand Hotel Timeo, A Belmond Hotel, on the same lip of rock above Taormina. The villa has been there as long as the hotel; Belmond folded it back into the property this month, after a redesign by Laura Gonzalez. Twenty-one rooms and suites can be booked one at a time or taken as a whole house.
Gonzalez runs her own studio in Paris. She has worked on Cartier boutiques, a chapter of Saint-Louis crystal, the Hotel Saint-James in Bordeaux. Her hand is recognisable; warm colours, deep textiles, a curatorial eye for furniture. Sicily gave her stone, marble, and a long inheritance of pattern.
The house
Floors are South-Italian stone. Bathrooms are classic Italian marble. Antique pieces sit beside mid-century chairs and tables, the same combination she uses in Paris but pulled toward the Mediterranean palette. The colour blocks lean coral, ochre and a pale washed green. Patterned headboards repeat across the suites without copying themselves.
The villa carries its own infinity pool and a pool-terrace lounge. A new indoor bar, Clementina, sits at the centre of the ground floor. It is small by design, six or seven seats, with a programme the hotel calls mindfulness mixology. Twilight is the busy hour.
The Grand Hotel Timeo, Taormina · Courtesy of Belmond
The view
Taormina's old Greek theatre opens almost directly below. On a clear morning the gaze runs from the cavea down through the colonnade to the bay, then out to Calabria. Etna is on the right, often hooded. The villa's main rooms keep the line in frame; bedrooms turn slightly inward to hold the quiet.
Belmond runs the rest of the address. Otto Geleng, the Michelin-starred restaurant at the Grand Hotel Timeo, sits a short walk away. The hotel's spa, library, breakfast terrace and gardens stay open to villa guests. The deal is a separate front door with the back-of-house of a city hotel.
A small house beside a big hotel. The key turns once, and the rest of the building still answers.
The Splendid EditProgramming has been built around the villa. Alessandro Florio, a Taormina painter, runs occasional art classes in the courtyard. Sunrise yoga is set by the pool. The hotel also keeps the cooking-school at the Grand Hotel Timeo on the calendar for villa guests, and an early-morning Mount Etna drive for the geologically curious.
Taormina's profile has shifted in the last few seasons. The town carries a heavier draw of fashion crowds in spring, the side-effect of Dolce and Gabbana's Alta Moda showings and a more general Sicilian moment in the broader culture. Villa Timeo arrives in the window when the season is still soft, before July compresses the place.
Villa Timeo grounds at the Grand Hotel Timeo · Courtesy of Belmond
The reopening sits inside a broader Belmond move toward what the group has been calling slow luxury, fewer rooms, more programming, longer stays. Villa Timeo is the cleanest expression of it on the Italian side this spring. The Grand Hotel Timeo keeps the lobby. The villa keeps the door.
Villa Timeo is open at Grand Hotel Timeo, A Belmond Hotel, Taormina. Reservations through belmond.com.
Photography courtesy of Belmond · Grand Hotel Timeo and Villa Timeo, Taormina