Palazzo Presta | Studio Atelier P

For the small Boutique Hotel Palazzo Presta, in Salento, the Milanese design studio ATELIER P recalls the charm of travel with eclectic and timeless elements.
 
You can travel while standing still. It happens at Palazzo Presta, a charming boutique hotel in Gallipoli, Salento, totally renovated by ATELIER P into a mandatory stop for globetrotters, invited to pass through a small door to find a great path on multiple levels: temporal, architectural and emotional.

Once belonged to the doctor and agronomist Giovanni Presta in the eighteenth century, in 2017 the building found out a new usability without forgetting the spirit that animated this place, when the ancient owner used to open its doors to his fellow citizens to dispense care and advices. In the renovation project, that sense of protection and relaxation returns to reside within the ancient walls, attracting tourists from all over the world. The architects Mattia Pareschi and Luca Piccinno, and the interior decorator Alessandro Mario Cesario, intervene to consolidate the structures, the floors, bring out the Apulian tuff, enhance the vaults, create volumes that dialogue with the original ones.

The result is an example of hospitality with an international flavor that sediments the idea of a journey backwards, in the history of the territory and in the personal history of each guest, thanks to fabrics, colors, in a linear architecture rich in details that mixes with nomadic design objects that offer a geographical synthesis of the globe. Palazzo Presta presents itself as a creative hub where Atelier P manages to bring "the journey" to life just by looking around. The ten rooms are eccentric maps, each one with its own name and its own personality, offering memories and suggestions in an only apparently random order. Because every detail is studied, composed, even designed for maximum customization of the environment. A concept created by local artisan hands, which Atelier P sees as added value and a necessary business culture. Thus, headboards and beds come from the "workshops" of TAULA INTERIORS, while the fabric lamps - chandeliers, wall lamps and bedside lamps in art deco style - are by MAURIZIO BELLACCI. The glass ones bear the signature of New Fashion Glass. The upholstery coverings and tapestries come from archives of important weaving companies to guarantee uniqueness.

The rooms are distributed over two floors, accessed by a main staircase in Lecce stone - AP chooses local stone for the steps and windowsills - squeezed between walls treated with glazing to bring out the tone and value of the pre-existing structures. Also on the ground floor, the lift shaft is built from scratch and looks like a reinforced concrete vault, a graft that underlines the relationship between historical and contemporary in the restyling project. The materiality is a nerve to be discovered in every corner, it is revealed in the cementine floors, original at the entrance or new, of MARRA floors, with different decorations for each room, the choice of glazes guarantees that taste of experience that allows AP to dare with colors and textures with a tactile effect.
The bathrooms are cubes placed in the space, basic shapes that enhance the expressiveness of the vaults and create an original sequence of shapes. The classic bathroom fixtures are brought by SIMAS. FIAS takes care of windows and doors and ironwork.

The story of this fascination for an interior that is both nostalgia and modernity also continues on the outside of Palazzo Presta: for the common terrace, on the first floor, Atelier P uses locally crafted vases and makes them glazed by filling them with large palms as a sustainable room divider. On the upper level, in addition to the rooms, there is the rooftop sea view, the LAURUS terrace, an experience for the eyes and the palate. In the summer season, this is where breakfasts are served, where you can appreciate the atmosphere of an old club for travellers, where the Corten steel soul of the Bar refers to the refined délabré face of the building and the Emperador marble counter to timeless elegance. An open air space with okume' sofas and Salento tuff benches equipped with white and brown striped cushions reminiscent of the deckchairs of the Seventies. The timeless Peacock completes, here in the black version, inspired by the English Windsor seat.
And if you really don't want to go down to the beach, the journey continues on the roof terrace, comfortably lying on the sun loungers in the solarium, same striped pattern, same comfort.