Palazzo Margherita is perfect for your destination wedding! They offer an outdoor pool, free Wi-Fi, and a garden. This luxurious 19th-century villa was refurbished thanks to director of The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola. Inside features elegant rooms with a flat-screen TVs. It won the Best-Dressed Hotel award from Smith Hotels in 2016.
Palazzo Margherita was once a crumbling 19th-century relic, but while re-discovering his roots in the 15th-century hilltop town of Bernalda (in Matera), Coppola pledged to restore the decaying building to its former glory. The result was more of a family home than a hotel, with unobtrusive yet intuitive service, extravagant suites designed by the Coppola team and rustic home-made cooking. It’s a rarefied Baroque bolthole where you’re welcomed like an honorary member of the film-making dynasty, surely the kind of offer no one could refuse. Coppola is also a reputable entrepreneur: this nine-bedroom hotel-come-manor is his fifth resort worldwide.
I walked into ‘Suite Four’ (my abode for the next two nights) and it was like stepping into a mythological dream.
The patterned, arched ceiling looms over ivory and pastel-washed furniture. Wicker chairs surround a teal footstool and sofa, both of which are positioned diagonally to the king-sized bed draped in crisp linen. Adorning the four walls is a hazy, sage-colored fresco.
The Godfather director has added modern touches to Southern Italy’s Palazzo Margherita. The rustic-flavored interior is at odds with the room’s hi-tech amenities, which includes a flat screen Apple TV and an iPod-compatible stereo. Such modern-day concessions aren’t overbearing though: in fact they blend into their surroundings and it doesn’t disrupt the comfort of the customer. My suite was nicknamed ‘Sofia’ after Coppola’s only daughter who is a respected director in her own right (Lost in Translation; The Bling Ring). A member of the hotel staff informed me that she stays in this very room when visiting and it is well documented that she chose the Palazzo as the location for her wedding to rock star, Thomas Mars, last year.
Privacy is in abundance here; while the hotel may be located on one end of Bernalda’s high street it is camouflaged – hidden behind two huge fort doors that can only be opened with a guest key. These sturdy, wooden doors swing open to reveal the Palazzo’s square courtyard: a quintessential Italian patio, where vines claw their way over a dark-metal balcony, and come to rest alongside strapping marble pillars, whose bases have been turned into exposed-brick trimming.
