Casa Flora: design and hospitality to experience the contemporary side of Venice

Casa Flora: a designer flat in Venice, an open, social space where you can live, work and create relationships, designed to live the city and feel like a Venetian.

Casa Flora is the Gioele Romanelli’s hospitality project, hotelier at Hotel Flora, created in partnership with Diego Paccagnella, creative director and founder of Design-Apart.

For more than half a century the Romanelli family have been managing the Hotel Flora with dedication; it stands out in the hotel panorama of Venice for its warmth, charm and good living. A profession, the one of the hotelier, that the family handed down since the sixties, from one generation to an other up to Gioele, born and raised in Venice and in love with his city.

In 2002, together with his wife Heidy, Gioele created a small and marvellous space of only 9 rooms of ethno-chic inspiration, the Novecento Hotel, where he saw the importance of offering his guests an authentic and contemporary experience. This chapter has lead the family, with the support of Zoe, Gioele’s sister, and Francesca Brasolin of the consulting firm Hotel Players, to create a new concept of hospitality, aimed at travellers who are no longer looking for just a “nice room with a bathroom”.

Casa Flora and Design-Apart are two worlds that meet: the one of hospitality by tradition and the one of design by innovation, connected by the intention of creating a place that has not been there before in the lagoon; a place for those travellers who want a different type of hospitality, with tailor-made services and spaces, and who want to experience the most authentic and contemporary side of the lagoon.

The encounter with Design-Apart was fundamental to build the foundations of Casa Flora; Diego Paccagnella is now in charge of the artistic direction. A first studying phase started in the summer of 2015, in which six design students from different schools such as the Parsons of New York, the Domus Academy of Milan and IUAV of Venice were invited for a in-house workshop, under the guidance of Matteo Ghidoni, Diego Paccagnella and Stefano Micelli: they started by visualizing the spaces, then they studied how to connect them with the rest of the city, and draft their first products, together with some local companies.

After that a study on the feasibility of the project began, followed by the actual development of the interior design and the creation of the furnishing products. In the following months Casa Flora started to grow and acquire new values, which combined the Made in Italy design with personalized services, cultural events open to the city, local companies, young international designers, emerging chefs and local products.

An entirely tailor-made and Italian designed apartment that welcomes travellers with the comforts of a boutique hotel, offering them, at the same time, the independence of their own home. The architecture and interiors of the typical Venetian palace meet the best of the Italian craftsmanship and manufacturing design. At Casa Flora everything is tailor-made and designed to live the space as an experience.

More than 20 companies were involved, who stepped in and worked to create unique pieces, as unique is the atmosphere that you breathe in the house. The front door opens onto the main floor, completely redesigned: there is light everywhere shaping the space, large windows, three portals that connect the living areas of the flat making the space fluid and soft.

It is the social environment of the house, designed to be shared, perfect for lunches and dinners prepared in the kitchen island in the centre of the apartment and served in the dining room, which becomes a meeting room for important working events.

A distinctive element of Casa Flora, that also reminds us of its name, is the natural aspect that pervades the rooms and the different areas. Here the colours of the lagoon nature, in pink, green, yellow and blue, become the colours of the bedrooms, with tapestries in nuance, where the bedside tables are transformed into original flowers holders.

Here we focus on the individual care and well-being: this is why each room has its reading corner and its SPA and hammam area, situated inside large bathrooms designed as small private gardens and greenhouses for relaxation, as if they were a natural extension of the Hotel’s garden.

The dividing walls between the sleeping area and the bathroom resemble the old windows of the greenhouses, and the sinks are double, with a functional basin and a basin full of indoor plants that allow the house to breathe even further, in a complete and natural synergy with the high tech air control system.

What you can see and touch in the house can be then purchased on the web: Casa Flora offers a selection of special objects, created by the best craftsmen working in and around Venice and by the designers involved in the project. This is made to boost the best local production and make it accessible to all travellers, in a modern way.

All photos of Casa Flora are by Valentina Sommariva, while those of the Hotel Flora have been kindly granted by the hotel.