Villa Bordoni, a sophisticated country house hotel, nestles in the grey-green hills immediately above the town of Greve, in the heart of the Chianti Classico region of Tuscany. This 16th century noble villa commands an extraordinary vantage point over the unspoiled Chianti hills and their biblical landscape of vineyards, terraced olive groves and forest.
A vine leaf and a thistle, the coat of arms of this elegant hotel, perfectly convey the spirit of its very existence. The first symbolises the heart of Chianti Classico - Greve, to be precise, a fertile land home to this famous red wine and to this Renaissance villa. The second, a "cardo", or thistle, is a reference to the Scottish origins of the owners, Catherine and David Gardner. The couple, though new to the hotel sector, are already well known for their reinvention of the Florentine restaurant scene and are the owners of the Trattoria Baldovino and the Ristorante Beccofino in the historic centre of Florence.
Villa Bordoni was discovered by the Gardners in the winter of 2002. For some years they had been searching for the ideal property to realise their ambition of opening a luxurious but unpretentious country house hotel in the Florentine Chianti. When they first saw the Vila Bordoni, they knew instantly that they had found the right place. The villa was in dire condition and slowly rotting into the poetically beautiful landscape which surrounds it. Small details, such as the plumbago colour of the sun-bleached facade and more than 20 tortoises of different generations roaming around in the abandoned walled garden, made the Gardners realise that they had fortuitously stumbled upon a treasure. This was a place which contained the decayed yet divine essence of the romantic Italy of the Grand Tour. After a painstaking restoration by Florentine architect Andre Benaim and by veteran interior designer Riccardo Barthel, the villa has regained its original soul, opening its doors to guests in the spring of 2006.
Villa Bordoni is now proud to be among Condé Nast Traveller's "60 Best New Hotels in the World" (2006), and "Top New Hotels in the World" (2007). It was also published in Travel & Leisure's "Tuscany's Best Hotels" (May 2008).
