La Posta Vecchia

La Posta Vecchia, “the old post house,” is as understated a name as one can imagine for such a grand seaside palace. Once a carriage house for mail stages traveling up the coast north of Rome, it was bought and restored by the American industrialist J. Paul Getty, packed with antiquities and artworks as well as all the modern conveniences an eccentric billionaire could desire.

Though only a hotel since after Getty’s death, it’s essentially as he left it, with few of the trappings of the modern hotel business and all the authenticity one would expect of a collection curated by the Getty Museum. The charm is not in ostentatious service, or state-of-the-art facilities, but in the elegance of the estate, whose rooms and suites are furnished with 17th-century antiques and look out over the Mediterranean Sea or the estate’s parks, full of artifacts of the Roman Empire.

Unlike many a luxury hotel, La Posta Vecchia retains a certain aristocratic understatement, despite the sheer volume of priceless artworks and antiquities. Never do the interiors cross the line into nouveau riche excess, nor into prefab palace parody; this is the real thing, with no use for posturing. In the rooms you’ll feel like the house guests of modern aristocracy, and in the suites you may feel a bit like Getty himself, though given his notoriously tight wallet he’d probably have insisted on fetching his own room service.

Facilities are minimal compared to most modern five-stars, with their spa treatments and driving ranges; here you’ll find a fine enough indoor pool, a handsome meeting room and little else, although the hotel's restaurant, the Cesar, recently obtained a Michelin star. Then again you’re here to spend the night in the splendor of a picture-book mansion, not a luxury theme park. Rome is just 40 minutes away, an easy enough jaunt in the hotel’s car, and if you can’t find something to entertain you there, then we will keep our peace for ever!

How to get there: La Posta Vecchia is a 25-minute drive from Rome-Fiumicino Airport and a 30-minute drive from the port of Civitavecchia.