The book

GRAND HOTEL GARDONE
 

 

 

 

1881, works begin and convert an old inn on the lake in Hotel Wimmer (or Pizzocolo) by the engineer Louis Wimmer.

1883, September 1, Wimmer's widow, Mrs. Emilia Holzgärtner (1851-1928), gets a license to open the Hotel Pizzoccolo (later Hotel Gardone).

1883, November, inauguration of the Hotel Pizzoccolo.

1883, Wimmer's widow askes eng. Angel Fuchs (1848-1920) to design and to extend the Hotel Pizzoccolo.

1884, January, first guests to the new Hotel Pizzoccolo, including Dr. Louis Rohden, main promoter of the winter resort.

1884-1904, five resturations transform the hotel Pizzoccolo into Pension Gardone Riviera and then in Grand Hotel Gardone.

1887, it's added another storey to the entire building lane and are joined the two original buildings.

1890, the Hotel Gardone Riviera, thanks to extensions that include part of the citrus orchard, can accommodate 150 people (the dining room can hold 200).

1891, the Hotel Gardone Riviera is the first big hotel of the lake to be lit by electricity (10.000 Watts a force equal to 3200 candles).

1895, extension of the hotel with the creation of 52 new rooms.

1897, the historian Giuseppe Solitro writes that the new Hotel Gardone - rebuilt by Eng. Fuchs and conducted by Mr. Charles Lützelschwab - could be considered a country. "It contains about 300 rooms, all open at noon, dining rooms (the biggest has a capacity of 250 persons), conversation, reading, music and playground rooms, big windows, bathrooms, gardens with tropical vegetation and a beautiful promenade along the Lake. The hotel is illuminated with arc lamps and incandescent and is heated by radiators.

1900, September, Karl Wimmer Lützelschwab buys from Wimmer's widow the Grand Hotel Gardone.

1901, the writer Paul Heyse - Nobel Prize for Literature in 1910 - attends the Grand and set there the novel Eine venezianische Nacht (A night in Venice) written in that same year and published in Novellen vom Gardasee (Tales from Lake Garda) in 1902.

1903, March 18, King George of Saxony reaches Gardone Riviera and hosted at Villa Wimmer, while his retinue stayes at the Hotel Gardone. The hotel becomes the destination of nobles and intellectuals from all over Europe.

1904, the German architects Hermann Billing and Wilhelm Vittal Karlsruhe design a new Hotel Gardone. Works are entrusted to the company of Angelo Fuchs. "More then 120 people work so hard  to finish and to make habitable the new building before the end of December". He realized the final building with the tower, the symbol of the Grand Hotel Gardone Riviera, after demolishing the two original buildings.

1906  , Karl Lützelschwab realizes the first brochure of the Grand with several pictures of the new architectures: the new facade overlooking the square, the entrance, the large restored building on the lake, the living room, the reading room, the dining room, the music and billiard room, kitchens, some bedrooms with private areas and, in the last page, the design of the new tower with the final name: Grand Hotel in gold mosaic tiles. This new structure has 160 rooms.

1921, February 2 to 14, the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio stays with his staff at the Grand Hotel waiting for Villa Cargnacco, the future Vittoriale.

1921-1928, many guests of D'Annunzio stay at the Grand, including, in 1937, the father of Futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

1922, Karl Lützelschwab sells the Grand Hotel to two different families: Cocchetti and Berries.

1925, Attilio Ferrario, American hotel manager in Salsomaggiore, buys the Grand which has 180 beds.

1926, February 2, D'Annunzio writes a letter to Mussolini to save the management of the Grand Hotel.

1934, the Grand Hotel becomes property of the bank Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde.

1943, (Second World War), the Grand Hotel is converted into a hospital. Romano Mussolini is one of the patients and his father Benito often comes Gargnano to visit him.

1949, July 25, Winston Churchill comes to the Grand for a long stay and he is joyfully welcomed by the guests.

 

1953, December, the picture of Grand Hotel Gardone is printed on the stamp series “touristic Italy” issued by the Italian Post Offices to commemory the most famous Italian resorts such Capri, Cortina and Taormina.

1954, March, Enrico Mizzaro manages his first season at the Grand Hotel Gardone but he becomes the owner only three years later, in 1957.

Sixties, the Grand is attended by famous guests: Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), the Russian astronaut Valentina Tereskova, the first woman in the space (1963).

1986, the Grand Hotel Gardone Riviera is included in the association "Historical Italian Locals".

Nineties, the hotel is restored and the new Winnie's Bar opens. Its name is in memory of Sir Winston Churchill, who liked to sip his favourite champagne in this bar.

2001, October; the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stays at the Grand together with the FIFA president Joseph Blatter and Franz Beckembauer. He askes to André Heller to realize the logo and the choreography for the World Football Cup in Germany in 2006.

2004, Mizzaro family celebrates 50 years of management of the Grand by publishing the book: Grand Hotel Gardone. An European hotel a hundred and twenty years after the first season and a half-century run by Mizzaro family.

2005, the hotel garden was chosen as the perfect sitting for a BMW calendar with the classic Moto R69.

2009, A large collection stamp of the series “Historic Venues” to commemorate the hotel.

2011, the newly re-edited version of the 2004 publication of the book “Grand Hotel Gardone historic hotel on Lake Garda since 1884 with more details and photographs.