Via Brancolano 2 50029 Firenze − Italy
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Villa Le Rose is a Renaissance villa, originally commissioned by the marquess Niccolò Antinori in the Fifteenth Century. It sits at the end of a driveway lined with cypress trees on the southern hills of Florence, just ten minutes from the city centre.
Over the centuries it has undergone numerous improvements and renovation work. Its overall Renaissance character and details sets it apart from any other villa in its category.
The layout of Villa Le Rose is typical of aristocratic Renaissance villas. It is centered around a paved courtyard, surrounded by formal gardens and set in a productive agricultural landscape.
The villa itself measures 1000 square meters and sleeps up to fourteen guests in seven bedrooms. The two gardens on either side total 1200 square meters. And an eleven hectare park, including a lake, surrounds the property.
1427: Records first appear of a settlement in Brancolano
1435: Brancolano is sold to the Antinori family as a Borghi property for 400 Florins. Records describe the property comprised of a farmholding and a stately home.
15th Century: Villa le Rose belongs to the Colomboli family. Also known as Rossi D’Oltrarno this Florentine family figures in archival records since 1156. Over the years they change their family name to Rosolesi and establish their coat of arms which feature a rose in honour of the villa.
1487: The widow of Antonio de’ Rossi D’Oltrarno sells the villa to Niccolò Tommaso Antinori.
1513: The architect Niccolò Ruccellai carries out restructuring work to the villa establishing its current Renaissance style. Following Antinori’s request, the stately living quarters are developed on the ground floor and the basement, while the first floor was reserved for wheat storage.
1629: The Salone delle Feste, The Ballroom, is frescoed. However the date is disputed on the grounds that the green used was not employed in Florence until after 1700.
1700:The dining room is frescoed with the myth of Diana and Actaeon.
1780: The Blue Living room is frescoed with country scenes. The Studio is also adorned with trompe-l’oeil monochromatic figurative scenes and stucco framed.
1800: Initial work is carried out on the south face of the first floor in order to create more bedrooms. The remaining part of the first floor is kept for wheat storage.
1937: The villa is sold to the Küchel family. They embark on modernising the villa, adding an internal elevator.
1944: Following the Allied Forces’ success in pushing back the German line, the villa is requisitioned and used by American officers as their quarters.
1958: Villa le Rose is bought by Earnst and Jean Boissevain.
1963: Restructuring and renovation work ends. Among the work completed, the swimming pool is built replacing the round corral.
1983: Leonardo and Beatrice Ferragamo acquire Villa le Rose.
2004: Restoration and maintenance work on the villa ends giving it its current appearance.
The Villa's facilities
Conçierge Services
Apart from Villa le Rose's 5 star hotel servicies and facilities that are included, we can also offer a broad range of additional services to cater for our guests desires.
Wine and oil tasting tours, concert and opera tickets, hot-air balooning over Tuscany, arranged shopping sprees with personal assistants are but some of the extra services that can be arranged.
The Sitting Room: Facing the Cedar Garden, this small sitting room was entirely frescoed with grotesque motifs in the Nineteenth Century.
A curious feature of the room are two small portraits of the villa’s past owners, most likely the Boissevain, which were added in the middle of the last century.
The Blue Living Room: The Blue Living room was originally a bedroom in the Sixteenth Century when the villa belonged to the Antinori family. Today it serves as an informal living room.
It was frescoed around 1780, on the cusp of Romanticism, with picturesque landscapes and classical ruins as was common for the period.
The Kitchen: The open-plan kitchen on the lower floor is spacious and bright, and features a traditional Tuscan fireplace and bread oven. It offers all modern amenities, including a dishwasher and plenty of food storage space.
The whole lower floor maintains its original Fifteenth Century appearance, complete with barrel and cross vaulting.
The Garage: The villa's basement includes a 130m2garage which can house two to three cars.
The Baldacchino Suite is the only remaining bedroom on the ground floor as originally planned by Niccolò Antinori in the Sixteenth Century.
The walls are decorated with frescoes depicting Old Testament scenes. Research has dated the work to 1730.
This was one of the first bedrooms created on the first floor during restructuring work in the Nineteenth Century.
Favoured for its prime position, it overlooks the central courtyard on one side and the surrounding countryside on the other. It comprises adjacent twin beds and a spacious seating area.
The Green Bedroom is the largest suite in the villa. It owes its name to the green Eighteenth Century furniture in the hallway preceding it.
A hidden passageway for staff leads to a service hallway and stairs to the ground floor. The bedroom features a double bed, a sitting area with a working fireplace and a sizeable wardrobe.
The Oriental Bedroom owes its name to the frescoed walls depicting Chinese figures. It is the smallest bedroom but commands a central view of the villa’s park and lake beyond. Fallow deer, hares and other wildlife can be spotted roaming the estate.
The bedroom features a four-poster double bed canopied in Nineteenth Century Tuscan silk and a sitting area with a working fireplace.
The Pink Bedroom is one of the more modern rooms in the villa, decorated with classic furniture and wood flooring. It is a spacious corner bedroom comprised of two single beds that can be joined together to make a dou
The Guest Suite is furnished in a modern style. Its corner position commands a view of the cypress tree-lined driveway that leads to the villa.
The suite comprises a double bed, a study area and a wardrobe closet.
The Staff Bedroom is a double room for visiting staff. It is equipped with a kitchenette and its own bathroom.
This bedroom may be used by the villa’s guests if required.
The villa’s swimming pool sits in the middle of the north eastern Porcinai Garden. It was built in 1960 where the round corral previously stood. Built in the shape of an oval, the swimming pool measures 18 meters in length and 9 meters in width, and is just short of 3 meters in depth.
Villa le Rose is surrounded by two gardens which measure 1200 square meters combined. On one side of the property lies the swimming pool’s Porcinai Garden, named after the landscape and garden designer Pietro Porcinai.
On the other side of the villa lies the Cedar Garden, named after the 300 year old Lebanon cedar that features prominently over it. A tall hedgerow encloses the Cedar Garden’s English style lawn, the roses, potted plants and an al fresco seating area.
The Ballroom, also known as the Salone delle Feste, is one of the oldest rooms in the villa. However doubt is cast over its exact date.
Although records indicate that it was frescoed in 1629, art historians confirm that the pale green used, a colour favoured by the Hapsburg House of Lorraine, was not common in Florence until after 1700.
The Ballroom features a minstrel’s gallery for performing musicians, and a Steinway grand piano which was played by the Russian virtuoso Anton Rubinstein at a private concert in 1961.
The Ballroom measures 135 square meters and can comfortably accommodate 110 seated guests.
The Dining Room accommodates up to twenty seated guests. A large, five-tiered crystal chandelier with tear-drop and prismatic pendants hangs in the centre of the room.
Around 1700 the dining room was frescoed with the myth of Diana and Actaeon. It depicts how Actaeon, while hunting wild boar, chanced upon Diana bathing. Incensed by the transgression, she turned him into a stag that was duly set upon by his own dogs.
Villa le Rose is surrounded by an eleven hectare park. Historically the land was farmed as was customary for all landed estates. Nowadays, the olive tree plantation still stands the fruits of which go towards producing olive oil. At the foot of the hill lies an artifical lake that collects runoff rainwater.
Villa Le Rose sits at the end of a 600m driveway lined with cypress trees. When the Antinori family first planted the trees in the 17th Century, they requested that only male cypress trees should be used, believing that they were more elegant and tapered than their female counterpart. They are now a protected landmark.
Please fill this form for individuals or for groups and you shall receive an answer written by a live person at Villa Le Rose. This is the only way you can know exactly what room types are available for the dates you want, and the best possible rate, because you are dealing directly with the hotel.
Bear in mind that websites set up to give an automatic answer, work with allocated quotas given by the hotel, therefore when it appears there are no rooms available for the date you want, this is not necessarily true, because they never allocate ALL the rooms to third parties.
Hotel: Villa Le Rose
Address: Via Brancolano 2 50029 Firenze
Region: Tuscany
Country: Italy
Official website: http://www.villalerose.com/
Telephone: +39 055 295 415
Fax: +39 055 27264444
Hotel email: elena@villalerose.com
Train station
Santa Maria Novella Station - 10 Km.
Airport
Amerigo Vespucci Florence Airport - 17 Km.
Galileo Galilei Pisa Airport - 81 Km.
By car
From Santa Maria Novella Train Station: Take Piazza Della Stazione and turn left on Via Valfonda, then turn rught on Viale Filippo Strozzi and turn right again on Viale Spartaco Lavagnini. Take Piazza Della Libertà, then Viale Giacomo Matteotti and then take Piazzale Donatello. Turn right on Viale Antonio Gramsci, then take Piazza Cesare Beccaria and then Viale Della Giovine Italia. Turn left on Piazza Piave, then take Lungarno Guglielmo Pecori Giraldi, then Lungarno Del Tempio, then Lungarno Cristoforo Colombo and then take Lungarno Aldo Moro. Take exit 1 and continue on Via Enrico De Incola. Turn right on Ponte A. Varlungo, then take SP127 and pass near by Bagno a Ripoli. Around Grassina Ponte a Em take A1 / E35 on way to Bologna / Siena / Racc.Autostradale / Firenze / Pisa Nord, then take exit on way to Firenze Certosa, then take exit 3 and continue on the SR2 on way to Firenze and then turn right on Vicolo Delle Rose and take Via Brancolano.
GPS Coordinates
43.718859, 11.2297916
Airport distances
Florence 15 mins
Pisa 1 hour
Places of interest
Florence 12 mins
Siena 50 mins
Lucca 50 mins
Rome 2 hours 40 mins
Venice 2 hours 40 mins