The Cardinal's Building was the summer residence of Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio and was designed in 1568 by Pellegrino Pellegrini, known as Il Tibaldi. It holds 124 rooms, the lobby, the Veranda restaurant and the Canova Bar, and on the piano nobile the Cardinal Suite and two Presidential Rooms. The Queen's Pavilion dates from 1856 and is named after Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales, who owned the villa from 1815 to 1820. Its red trompe-l'oeil façade shelters 27 rooms and suites in pastel tones, with lake views from small balconies.
The park mixes Baroque, Renaissance and Romantic gardens, with chestnut and magnolia trees, wisteria, citrus groves, camellias, the Fountain of Hercules and the Temple of Telemachus. It belongs to the Grandi Giardini Italiani network.
Rooms face the Renaissance courtyard, the gardens or the lake, in warm tones with antique furnishings. The suites are decorated in red, yellow and blue, and the Cardinal Suite measures 108 square metres with a lakeside terrace. Four separate villas stand in the old park for longer stays.
La Veranda is the main restaurant, where Executive Chef Andrea Guerini, who joined the hotel in 2004 and leads a brigade of 60 chefs, cooks classical Italian dishes with seasonal produce from the sea, the land and the lake. Glass walls open onto a terrace over the water in summer. The Grill serves meat, fish and Mediterranean dishes under old trees near the Queen's Pavilion, and a sundeck stands by the lake. Smart casual is asked at lunch and elegant dress at dinner, with a jacket for men.
The Sporting Club opened in 1966 with the lake's first floating pool. The estate has eight tennis courts, six of them clay, with Lux Tennis coaches, a gym open around the clock, water sports, a spa with green marble, and a par-69 golf course designed in 1926, 14 kilometres away. Guests can arrive by private boat at the hotel's dock, by helicopter at its helipad, or by ferry to the Cernobbio pier, five minutes on foot.
It suits travellers who want a historic lakeside estate with sport and gardens, within about an hour and forty minutes by car of the Milan airports.