The Heritage of the Heart:
Where hospitality becomes art
The Hotel Emilia was born from a vision of authentic hospitality, where the flair for the new and the love for meeting have transformed a family story into a timeless crossroads of culture and beauty.
Emilia is the matriarch of the family that founded Hotel Emilia: a woman who transformed the Bay of Portonovo from a natural haven for quarry workers and fishermen into a destination of great tourist significance.
It was Emilia who, starting in the 1920s and later in 1964, inspired the creation of places that would shape Portonovo: from the Osteria del Poggio to the Emilia beach restaurant, and ultimately to the construction of Hotel Emilia on a wheat field suspended between sea and sky.
Through her strong presence, Grandma Emilia gave the place the sense of home and community that still defines it today.
Hotel Emilia is the dream brought to life by her daughter Elia and son-in-law Lamberto: a couple who, with courage and deep roots in the area, transformed passion and hard work into a small paradise. Their children carried this legacy forward until 2025, keeping the family spirit alive and renewing the hotel's magic through the generations.
Since the 1960s, hospitality here has been closely tied to art and music. In 1966, the Premio Ginestra d’Oro del Conero was founded, an artistic residency that welcomed painters, sculptors, and writers, leaving behind works that turn the hotel into a small open-air art gallery.
In 2002, the park became a stage with Concerti sul Prato, a jazz festival that brought national and international artists to perform on the lawn, making summer at Hotel Emilia an unmissable event.
Three generations—from Grandma Emilia to Elia and Lamberto, and then their children—have built and cared for a place where hospitality, art, and music coexist, offering guests an experience defined by family warmth and cultural richness.
The Garden of Thoughts: Love for Art
At the Hotel Emilia, art is not a simple ornament, but a living language that inhabits the spaces and breathes their atmosphere.
From the silent sculptures that populate the park to the paintings that warm the living room, every corner holds a creative spark: photography, poetry, music and theater intertwine in a continuous dialogue between inside and outside. This vibrant spirit has made the hotel a home of choice for great names in culture and cinema — from Dustin Hoffman to Nanni Moretti — transforming the structure into a widespread museum where beauty speaks to the heart of each individual and belongs, intimately, to the whole of humanity.
Emilia: the origin of timeless hospitality
When Portonovo was a remote place, Emilia's authentic hospitality gave rise to a tradition of refined hospitality immersed in the nature of the Conero. This spirit has attracted artists and intellectuals over time, culminating in the sixties with the Ginestra d'Oro Award. Today, Hotel Emilia preserves this legacy, offering an essential luxury experience. Between silence, art and landscape, the structure transforms history into an exclusive contemporary stay, where beauty and natural rhythm remain the protagonists for each guest.
