The Bellavista Hotel was inauguarated in 1896, just after
the opening of the Como-Brunate funicular. Tommaso Ghirardi,
a renowned chef from Como, formerly employed at the Court of St James's,
decided to start his own business, benefiting from the increasing
tourism developing throughout the Italian lake district.
 After the 1920s, the Bellavista underwent various management changes,
due to declining tourism. The composition of visitors to Brunate
changed in the 1950s, leaving it no longer the sole preserve of
the Milanese industrial haute bourgeoisie, who had created the
village's trademark spacious Art Nouveau villas.
The Bellavista's proprietors are the Cavallanti family, who have
completed a scrupulous renovation of the entire building, restoring
and preserving its original Art Nouveau design.

"God grant me that I live here
my last days, far from native soil"

Brunate's allure has served as the background to the life of eminent poets
and inventors: Alda Merini, Alessandro Volta and, last but not least,
Pen?o Slavejkov; the renowned Bulgarian poet spent the last months
of his life at the Hotel Bellavista, far from home, but surrounded by
the nature and peacefulness that has been preserved here through time.

With the construction of villas and hotels, Brunate lived its heyday
between end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th:
a transformative and enormously influential era for art and design.
The Hotel Bellavista was created in the vibrant context of Art Nouveau
and its exquisite original design has been completely restored,
following a scrupulous renovation completed in 2013.