Villa Igiea is a historic luxury hotel in Palermo. Its position is very suggestive: it overlooks the sea, near the Acquasanta port, in the hamlet of the same name, and is protected behind it by Monte Pellegrino that overlooks it. Being raised above the natural coastline, the sea view is free for several kilometers. It is located a short distance from the neoclassical Villa Belmonte and from another building wanted by the Florio family, the Tonnara Florio, designed in neo-Gothic style by the architect Carlo Giachery. The external architecture is rather severe and imitates that of a castle with turrets and battlements. Remarkable stylistic affinities are found with Villa Sperlinga near Santa Flavia, in the province of Palermo. Particular attention was paid to the external garden and the decorations of the internal rooms, whose style follows the current of Art Nouveau or Liberty Style, which had conquered the whole city thanks to the activity of the architect Ernesto Basile, who was one of the major exponents of the time.

The neo-Gothic style building, which belonged to the English admiral Cecil Domwille, was bought by Ignazio Florio jr. as the main shareholder of a consortium of entrepreneurs who initially intended to make it a luxury sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. It was given the name of Igiea, from the Greek nymph Hygìeia, goddess of hygiene and protector of health. The sanatorium, however, never saw the light, as a commission of English doctors who came specifically from London to evaluate the project raised more than one doubt about the profitability of the company and the return on investment. Therefore Ignazio Florio found himself having to decide suddenly for a change of destination, commissioning the architect Ernesto Basile to adapt the project, already in an advanced stage of construction, to the needs and requirements of a luxury hotel. Ernesto Basile also designed the furniture of the building in a floral style, which was then commissioned to the famous furniture factory of Vittorio Ducrot. The interior decorations were carried out by various artists, including Giovanni Enea and Ettore De Maria Bergler who painted the original dining room of the hotel, better known as the Sala degli Specchi or Sala Basile.

Villa Igiea was inaugurated in 1900. From the very beginning it was a much loved place both by the owners Ignazio and Franca Florio, and by the beautiful world who frequented it assiduously. The Florio family hovered with their constant presence between the corridors and the rooms of the hotel, so much so that it is difficult to separate Villa Igiea as a hotel, as a public place, from Villa Igiea as a private residence, the "bourgeois palace" of what was like a royal family for Sicily in the last glimpses of the Belle Époque. At Villa Igiea, public and private mingled and coexisted until the Florio family disappeared following the loss of ownership of the villa.

The Great War marked the decline of the Palermitan Belle Epoque: the great personalities and families who decreed it (Florio, Mazzarino, Trabia, Whitaker) slowly but surely left the scene.

In the 1930s, Villa Igiea was managed by the Società Grandi Alberghi Siciliani which also administered the Hotel des Palmes and the Excelsior in Palermo, the San Domenico hotel in Taormina and, starting from 1937, the Utveggio Castle on Mount Pellegrino. .

During the years of the Second World War there will be hosted high military personalities: during the German occupation first and then in the period following the landing of the allies on the island, it is easy to believe that the hotel has undergone profound and irreversible changes.

Villa Igiea was finally acquired by the Banco di Sicilia, returning to be in more recent times a luxury hotel.

Now after the acquisition of the English group Roccoforte, after having undergone a major conservative restoration, it finally lives in a new light in a first-rate Palermitan / Historical context.

Source Wikipedia and Guido Frilli.