Perfect Pitch

Designed by Eduardo Gellner in the 1950s, the Villaggio Eni holiday resort, in the Italian Dolomites, is being repurposed as a modernist refuge for artists and creatives

- By Emma O'Kelly

Villaggio Eni, a holiday resort in the Venetian Dolomites, is where traces of Italy’s optimistic past live on. It has its origins in La Dolce Vita, the country’s post-war golden age, a time of Vespas, Tecno sofa beds and TV game shows. In 1959, 13 per cent of Italians went on holiday; by the 1960s, that figure had doubled. New motorways, Fiats and resorts catered to a prosperous nation on the move, while large companies, buoyed by benevolence and new profits, embarked on a corporate paternalism that saw the creation of holiday villages for their employees all over Italy.

Eni was, and still is, one of the largest energy companies in Italy, and here, between 1954-1957, Eni chairman Enrico Mattei and Italian architect Edoardo Gellner dreamed up a holiday retreat like no other. Gellner selected a site perched above the valley of Borca di Cadore and, using local wood, concrete and stone, set about creating a 120-hectare utopia. It would offer a range of accommodation for Eni employees and sick staff that needed to convalesce in the crisp mountain air. More than 270 villas would cater for families; children aged 12-16 could camp in A-frame cabins; singles could stay at the two hotels on site, and a ‘colony’ with dormitories and a refectory would serve as a holiday camp for 600 young children. A church, a general store, a bar, a spa, tennis courts, bowling alleys, playing fields and a ski lift ensured year-round enjoyment.