Castel Savoia

Castel Savoia is the grey-stone summer residence built for Queen Margherita of Italy between 1899 and 1904 above Gressoney-Saint-Jean in the Lys valley. She stayed here during summers until 1925. Its decorated interiors combine surviving original furnishings with pieces from Villa Margherita.

Why it matters

The castle preserves the architectural and decorative character of a royal summer residence, although only some of its furnishings are original to the building. The first Queen of Italy began holidaying in the Lys valley in 1889 as a guest of the Beck Peccoz barons, and she kept returning until 1925. The castle built for her at the locality called Belvedere — a name earned by the panorama that runs all the way to the Lyskamm glacier — became the stage for an entire Alpine court, with servants, chaplain, adjutants and guests arriving each July. It remains closely associated with Gressoney-Saint-Jean's history and identity.

What to notice

The exterior sets the tone: a rectangular core wrapped by five pointed towers, each deliberately different from the others, in a medieval-revival style the builders described as fifteenth-century Lombard, then fashionable in France and Savoy. The grey dressed stone came from quarries at Chiappey in Gressoney itself, at Gaby and at Vert near Donnas. The ground floor includes a columned atrium, dining room, semicircular veranda looking down the valley, and a game room with the billiard table; the noble floor is reached by an oak staircase carved with griffins and eagles. The atrium ceiling bears the inscription "Hic manebimus optime" ("here we shall stay very well"). A boudoir in the northern tower has painted faux drapery recalling Issogne Castle, and another room is dedicated to the future King Umberto II. A 1922 sundial carries the motto "Sit patriae aurea quaevis" — may every hour be golden for the homeland.

Context and history

The foundation stone was laid on 24 August 1899 in the presence of King Umberto I; a year later the king was assassinated at Monza and never saw the building finished. Work completed in 1904. The design is by Emilio Stramucci, an architect already responsible for the neo-baroque decorations of Turin's Palazzo Reale and Rome's Quirinale, while the coffered ceilings, boiseries and medieval-style furnishings came from the Turin carver Michele Dellera, supplier to the Royal House, and the ornamental paintings from Carlo Cussetti, later active in the Palazzo Reale. Kitchens sat in a separate building, connected to the dining room by a small underground Decauville railway — a practical royal eccentricity. Margherita summered here until 1925; she died at Bordighera on 4 January 1926. The castle was bought in 1937 by the Milanese industrialist Ettore Moretti and acquired by the Autonomous Region of Valle d'Aosta in 1981, which opened it to the public.