Villa Crespi

Villa Crespi is a 19th-century Moorish Revival-style rural mansion in the town of Orta San Giulio, Province of Novara, Piedmont, Italy; it is located southeast of the town, on Via G. Fava 18, near the shores of Lake Orta and below the Sacro Monte di Orta. The Villa is now a luxury hotel and restaurant managed by chef and restaurateur Antonino Cannavacciuolo, which has been awarded with three Michelin stars. The Villa, notable for its scenic minaret-like tower and interior atrium decorated in stucco arabesque, owes its name to the wealthy cotton merchant Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, who commissioned its construction to architect Angelo Colla in 1879 as his family holiday home and wanted it to remind him of the buildings he had seen during his working trips to the Middle East. It was once also called Villa Pia after Crespi's wife. In 1914, it was the location for the film Iwna, the Ganges' Pearl (original title Iwna, la perla del Gange) by Giuseppe Pinto.