The Villa has been home to many famous names from the world of art, science and politics. It was a meeting place of the English on the Amalfi coast and for the famous London Bloomsbury set. To mention just a few illustrious guests: E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Keynes, Henry Moore, Elliot, Crick, Piaget, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, the Duke and Duchess of Kent and Winston Churchill. It was the setting for the famous elopement of actress Greta Garbo and Leopold Stokowsky and has also played host to many important scientific and medical meetings at an international level.
Reliable notes about Villa Cimbrone exist since around the eleventh century and they merge with those of the golden age of Ravello. The origins of its name derive from the rocky ridge on which it stands known as ‘cimbronium’. As a patrician villa, it belonged to a noble family called Accongiogioco and then to the Fusco, a wealthy and influential family related to the Pitti of Florence and the Angio of Naples. Around the seventeenth century, the fate of the villa becomes unclear. At some stage it became an integral part of a nearby monastery of the Santa Chiara, hence the papal coat of arms of Cardinal Della Rovere placed at the top of the old entrance gate. There was a church in the vicinity, known as S. Angelo de Cimbrone also owned by the Fusco’s in 1291. At the end of the nineteenth century, Ernest William Beckett, an illustrious English gentleman later known as Lord Grimthorpe, fell desperately in love with the villa while on the Grand Tour, searching for the roots of Western history and culture. In 1904, he purchased it from the Amici’s of Atrani who had inherited the villa in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Inspired by the deep affection he felt for the villa, he decided to make it come alive again by transforming it into a splendid jewel and the most gorgeous place in the world. He was assisted in the fulfilment of this dream by an inhabitant in Ravello, Nicola Mansi, whom he had met in England and to who he entrusted the completion of the renovation work. Nicola was a creative personality who was able to manifest the vision of his client. The resulting garden was praised in the nineteenth century by Gregorovius in his notes as ‘incomparable…where the most beautiful flowers you can imagine flourished, coming from numerous plants of the South… redesigned and enriched with countless…ornamental features, small temples, pavilions, bronze and stone statues’. Lord Grimthorpe availed himself of a French botanist for the choice of the trees and cultivation of flower beds. According to recent studies, it is believed that the English botanist Vita Sackville-West – a friend of one of Beckett’s daughters – may have participated in the planning of the garden. She was in turn a friend and admirer of the famous gardening expert Gertrude Jekyll, whose numerous books are kept in the Villa’s private library.
A few years ago, the Villa’s frescoed halls and historical rooms became a renowned hotel, under the expert guidance of the Vuilleumier family,who had owned the property as a private house for many years previously. It is here that important personalities stay in search of exclusivity and blissful peace. Thanks to the unique atmosphere of the place, the refined service, and the direct management of its owners, visitors are made to feel like guests in a private house. The splendid gardens, and the rooms, with their ancient stone fireplaces provide an ideal setting for conventions, ceremonies and meetings as well as the perfect place for private respite and pampering.