Villa Crespi

Villa Crespi is a nineteenth century mansion in Orta San Giulio, in the Piedmont region of Italy, standing near the shore of Lake Orta beneath the Sacro Monte di Orta. It was built in 1879 by the architect Angelo Colla for Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, a wealthy cotton merchant who wanted the building to recall structures he had seen on business trips to the Middle East, and who also called it Villa Pia after his wife. The result is an eclectic building in the Moorish Revival style, marked by a minaret like tower and an interior atrium decorated with stucco arabesque ornament. Commissioned as a family holiday home, the villa later became a filming location for the 1914 film Iwna, the Ganges' Pearl. Since 1999 it has operated as a luxury hotel and restaurant under the chef Antonino Cannavacciuolo, whose restaurant there holds three Michelin stars and was ranked fifth among the best restaurants in the world by TripAdvisor's Travellers' Choice awards in 2023. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/