Panorama Lodge - La Casa dei Gelsi

The project that led to the realisation of the Panorama Lodge “La Casa dei Gelsi” was born in 2018, when the Zanini family decided to take over a large building on the edge of the village of Scudellate, at the top of the Muggio Valley, to renovate it as part of the development of the Albergo Diffuso del Monte Generoso. The building was built by the families of Gabriele and Antonio Cereghetti in 1890, when mountain farming families still exploited the terraces as the only agricultural resource to survive the difficult living conditions in the valley and was inhabited by their descendants until 2018. The old residence borders the old Swiss Guards’ (customs) house and is located along the path leading to the Italian border. A path that was trodden by many people during and after the Second World War, carrying goods and bringing with them joys and sufferings that marked an era and gave Scudellate a small role in their history. The work to renovate the building lasted four years and was particularly challenging. The Zanini family’s objective was to maintain the historical character of the house, but the main difficulty was the interior spaces, organised with two vertical flats each consisting of a myriad of small rooms. For this reason, the renovation could only be partially conservative, while various internal parts were restored maintaining the parameters and materials but realised with the knowledge of our time. In particular, all the exposed stone walls built at the end of the 19th century by the Cereghetti brothers have been worked on and now enhance the interiors of the ‘Casa dei Gelsi’. The large building overlooks a garden and terraces once used for agricultural purposes, which the Zanini family decided to reconstruct and enhance using materials used for the historical construction of the building, such as stone from Monte Generoso (Moltrasio stone), chestnut wood, etc. The large garden now houses five large mulberry trees and also a vegetable garden, while a large organic vineyard has been created on the various terraces, where there are also various species of native fruit trees.