The Decisive Moment with Valentina De Santis

0:02Alex Assouline:Valentina De Santis is a third generation autelier from Lake Como. She's the owner and CEO of the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, the Sheraton Lake Como, and most recently Passaracqua, which was the number one hotel best in the world in 2023 after just a year of opening. Valentina, welcome to the decisive moment. Grazie Alex for having me. Such an honor. it's really an honor for me you're someone I've really admired over the years and working with you has been such a pleasure so thank you for being here what was the key to that success? that's still my big question every morning it's very difficult to answer with a proper answer because there is not a recipe there is nothing that was made with this proposal Passa l 'acqua has been a family project first, first of all, because it's something that I share with my parents since moment one, since day one.

1:04And it was really a project of love. So it was falling in love. It was a big crash, like when you're at high school and you have a big crash the first time we saw it. We had a dream and we followed it. So both during the renovations, even just to give you an idea, we didn't even have a clear vision of how the final result about Passa L 'Acqua was going to be. Our was just a process of layering choices that were coming from the gut, from the heart, you know. And so it was adding love to love to this place. And then when you really manage to do it, I think, authentically, that's probably the key, where the magic happens.

1:50Because we managed to transmit this love to the team, that for us is a big family, and straight to the final guests. Because otherwise, I don't have an answer. I don't know how it could ever happen because Passalacqua was a completely unknown name, random name in the hospitality industry after one year. It was already quite impressive for us to see how successful it was very quickly just because of word of mouth, because we were so concentrated to make the product right that we really didn't invest time and energies in marketing or communication. So we just opened our doors one day and we said we're ready.

2:33Alex Assouline:The passion you put in it was so authentic that people were directly drawn to it, right? I hope so. I think so. So you grew up roaming the halls of Grand Hotel Tremezzo. Was there a single moment as a child where you thought, this is what I'm going to do with my life? I have in mind one single moment. because, you know, I mean, now I learned coming to the States more frequently when I was asked, oh, you look like Eloisa. And I say, who is this Eloisa? So now I really understand what a little Eloisa de Plaza means. And I feel like a little bit like a Valentina at the Grados del Tremezzo. Because for me, the hotel was my playground.

3:16But I remember when I was at primary school that I had to write an essay and where I was asked by my teacher how you envision you as a grown-up adult, as a grown-up person. And so I was really impressed by this question. So I made it with a lot of thinking behind it. And all my essay was me being in my grandfather's office. and listen to me, my grandfather, I didn't really meet my grandfather because he passed when I was three years old, but there was this office that then my father took over. And for me, it's always been my grandfather's office. So I was envisioning myself exactly with these words in my grandfather's office with all these things around.

4:04There was a writing machine that now is in my office, an old one and there was a little like model of the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and I envisioned myself there doing exactly what he dreamed of when he decided to buy the hotel so I think that was probably the most important probably also the only moment when I was a child when I was really thinking this is my destiny. But being an only child, you have this sense of responsibility. And that was probably a very enlightening moment that then always stayed in my heart, you know, in myself. I still remember it very clearly.

4:46Alex Assouline:They pushed you to reflect on that. So that was, in a sense, your decisive moment. So the way we call decisive moment at Asuline is the moment where you really knew that this was your calling and your purpose in life. And this is what you wanted to dedicate your life to do. Yeah, this was like the inception moment, let me say. Then I had a different decision moment that came later. And it was really when I joined the company, it was 2010. And there was a very, very strong reason behind it because the Grand Hotel Tremezzo was founded in 1910. So it was inaugurated in July, 1910. So 2010 was our centenary.

5:22And my father felt the need to speak with me and ask me, what do you want to do? After my graduation from college, I started to work on my own. I worked in strategic consultancy. So I really wanted to do my own path, my own career, and start to break the world of business on my own foot.

5:44Alex Assouline:That's interesting. You went in consulting a few years before joining the hotel. But what did that teach you that growing up in a hotel never could teach you? It was very helpful to create my own way of approaching the world of business. It gave me tools. It gave me the ability to think out of the box, to approach problems that you don't have any clue of, industries that you don't have any clue of with your own perspective. So seeing things that you don't know, like if you knew them. So this for sure is something that consultancy gave me. But probably more than everything else, what a hotel could have given me, but in a much slower pace, with a much slower pace, is the self-confidence.

6:37So in strategic consultancy, you are an associate. it's your second day of work and you find yourself in front of a CEO with slides that you have never seen and you have the CEO of a big company and he knows his big company so well and you have to prove that even if it's your second day of job and be able to stand in front of him at the same table I mean not maybe saying that his ideas are wrong but still really keep your points

7:06Alex Assouline:I love that You talk about Meraviglia and Villegiatura as the soul of Pasaracqua. For someone who has never been, what does that actually feel like when you enter in the door of Pasaracqua? So Meraviglia is the feeling that I really hope that everybody that crossed the gates feels. So Meraviglia is a sense of marvel, the feeling of being amazed, the feeling of being surprised. And I think it's such an important thing in the world of travel now, because the world is so full of beautiful things, but not so many still are able to surprise you deeply in your heart. And so this is a real feeling that we aim to create in the guests really as an immediate effect.

7:55Villegiatura is more the philosophy behind how we hope to create Passalacqua, because Passalacqua has always been a villa. It was the holiday villa for a noble family of Como. And Villegiatura is something that dates back to the Roman Empire. But I think the real sense that we have now is the one of the Renaissance.

8:17Alex Assouline:How did you find it? It was in 2018. It was in 2018. So it was a very, very incredible story because a series of consequences, one next to the other, I led my parents to take a boat with a friend that was a real estate agent, and they were passing in front of Pasalacqua. My mother asked, what about Pasalacqua? And he told, it's on sale at the end of this month. It was the beginning of October, and the auction was taking place on October 30th. How long is the perfect stay there? There is not a perfect length. I think as long as possible, as long as your schedule allows. I would say never less than two days.

9:01But even if you have two hours, it's already something. The average length of stay is four days, but the right answer is as long as you can. Because you will never want to leave, I hope.

9:14Alex Assouline:I will try my best. Because I know if I go, I'm never going to want to leave for sure. Coming back to what you said earlier, you're an unknown child and a three-generation legacy. And I know, you know, how it can feel. And you have a lot of, you know, weight on your shoulders to keep this whole momentum. And it's just fantastic. You've been doing it really well right now. Do you feel the weight of that as responsibility or more as freedom? Yeah, I think it's a good mix. First of all, it's a honor, I think. I feel blessed because it's something that I realize it's so important. It's so precious.

9:57And because it's precious, I feel the sense of responsibility on one side. But the word that you use, weight, which is so true, is also very sweet weight. Because it goes with this freedom that you're speaking about. So I think it's a good, big, big mix of so many, many feelings, the sense of bringing on this kind of legacy. And I'm alone as a child, and this allows me to really be able to transmit so much of my personality into the hotels. But the strength is also that I'm with my parents.

10:36Alex Assouline:Are they still involved? They're still involved, yes, yes. We take care of different parts of the company in a different way, But it's very nice to see that we always come together when it comes to decisions. It's the friction that creates that creativity. To me, the friction is the best. Yeah. I get asked that question sometimes of, are they still involved? My parents, I mean, more than ever, right? They are very much here every day. They really run everything that is creative. And it's amazing to learn from them every day. You know, I really need them and I need this discussion. I need this friction to be able to bring the company forward, to be able to create the most inspiring books that we can and work with the most amazing people like you're part of for our catalog.

11:23You keep saying as well that the key to the future is really staying rooted in the family, which I can definitely relate to that.

11:33Alex Assouline:And I love it. Nowadays, being a family business is such an important, incredible and precious and rare value. Because if you look around, the family businesses are decreasing in number. They are struggling. They are generational switches. I mean, passing from one generation to the other sometimes is challenging. And so many, many beautiful, I see this in my country. So Italy is all about family. We have such a strong, you know about it because you're European, you're French. So we have the same deep culture of seeing the family like a very, very important pillar, a very important value. and so we see in our country that is so rooted in this value how many incredible family companies that have so much heritage and so much history, so much value are sold to big corporations, international brands, big groups and I think we have really this honor and this sense of responsibility to protect this value of always remaining with a very strong focus on the fact of where we come from.

12:48We come from a family. And to me, this is the most holy aspect of our company. I will always try to protect it.

12:57Alex Assouline:Your hotels are very personal to you. You go to flea markets to find some objects. I mean, you're very, very involved, of course, but it's very much of the spirit of yourself and your soul. Do you think this is why it's so successful? It's not the why, but it's for sure one of the reasons. The real value of hospitality is that you don't only open the doors of your house, but also you open the doors of your heart. And your heart can be found in all the choices that you do because it's like taking care of someone, no? I mean, hosting someone is just taking care and share your love, share the care.

13:39So putting so much importance to the most little detail is something that the guests can feel. And I discovered it just living this life with Hotel Tremezzo first and then Pasalacqua even more because you have so much contact with the guests, even if I'm not involved in the everyday life of the hotel. But just passing by, so many guests just stop me or my parents and just say how much they loved, I don't know, the specific glass that we have at breakfast to serve the fresh orange juice. Or they notice things that for us have been so important. But then in the big picture, you think they're lost and they're not.

14:26They're never lost. So that's really also very rewarding because it's incredible how what you think can be transmitted straight to the guests.

14:38Alex Assouline:You think that proximity and authenticity, this is what makes a great hotel? Authenticity, yeah. It's a word that can be maybe very much used and sometimes too much used, but it's so true. So, and proximity allowed us to be very much present and to be present in a hotel. It's so important when there is a family. So the presence is so important, not only for the guests, but for the team, for the staff, because they really become your extended family. And when they feel that you are there, they're able to simply work in a different way. So this is also why they're so present in our book, you know, in the pictures, because they're the heart of our places.

15:29And when you really manage to be present as a family, it's like parenting them. So it's what we try to do and we hope to do in a nice way every day.

15:38Alex Assouline:The real hospitality is also, you know, made by the people. So you have, what, 24 rooms at Pasalaqua? 24. And Grand Hotel Termezzo, how many? 77. 77. So you stay close to the guests throughout the whole stay, which is a fantastic experience for them. This is also the reason why sometimes I encourage guests to do a tour of the back of the house. Because when you really see how the hotel is done, I mean, it's the people that make the magic happen in a hotel. So when you really manage to create this relationship with them and you enter into the heart of the hotel, it's really when you live enriched.

16:15And if you think about it, Paso Laco, we have 24 rooms and we have 150 people in the team. And in Tremezzo, we have 77 and we have 250 or more. So it's really a lot of humanity around each guest. It's a very, very much human-driven industry.

16:35Alex Assouline:The two hotels are about, what, 13 miles apart? Yeah. Both on the lake. How do you differentiate them so much? They are two completely different worlds. And this is also the reason why when we discovered that Passa L 'Acqua was on sale and we saw it, we decided to go for it because it was a completely different place in its soul and its DNA compared to Grand Hotel Tremezzo. So Grand Hotel Tremezzo dates back to 1910 and it was built as a Grand Hotel. It's actually nowadays the only luxury hotel that has been built not as a villa, then transformed into a hotel, but really from day one as a grand hotel.

17:16So from the facade to the lobby to the entrance, everything speaks about it being a grand hotel. And you feel it. When you enter the lobby, you really feel the same feeling, I hope, that the guests were getting 100 years ago. It's this sense of happiness, of liberty-style place. It speaks about Belle Epoque. It speaks about parties. It speaks about this sense of elegance that the people were expecting from a grand hotel at the time. Pasaraco is completely the opposite. So it's a home. So we bought it. And when we bought it, it was the villa, the house, the home of a family of four. So there were two parents and two daughters and then the caretakers that were living there.

18:05And so it was speaking about it being a home. And we didn't want to change this deep soul of this place. I really believe that every place has a very deep, vibrant soul. And they vibrate completely different. So Tremezzo is a very high vibe. Passa l 'acqua is a slow pace, is peaceful.

18:29Alex Assouline:And the rooms are very different in Pasalacqua, even inside the hotel. Yeah, we have three buildings. And again, even in the renovation part, while we were doing all the restoration, we decided to keep the soul of each building. So, of course, you feel in the same property. I mean, the taste and the eyes behind every choice are the same. but we put a lot of attention in keeping the characteristics of each building very, very clear. That's the essence of the main building. But then if you go to the palaz, which is one of my favorites, there were the stables. And the most beautiful thing that we found in the palaz are these huge ancient beams.

19:15So they are 300 years old wooden beams. And so we restored them. Stables for horses? Yes, they were stable for horses. And actually, we still have pictures. We even have pictures of what is nowadays is in the Palaz building, but it's now like one of the relaxation rooms of the spa. there were cows, little cows, sheep but we really did want to keep what was part of the history of this place and like in a room we found like some decorations that we tried to replicate in every room but it speaks a lot of the respect that we use when it's a matter of renovating something.

20:03Alex Assouline:Valentina, hearing you speak is just a dream, I have to tell you. You're too kind. I have a last question for you. It is, why do you love doing what you do? It is, I think I've always been meant to do this. It feels so natural. I would never envision myself now doing something different. I created in these years, and it was not immediate because after my decision moment, I said, yes, I joined the company. And then I cried for six months because I had to find my own space. I had to find my own path. Nobody teach me anything. I was just, boom, start, do whatever you want. So I had this huge white paper in front of me and I didn't know where to start to write a story.

21:01but then when I started now I cannot stop writing it it's a never ending novel and I would never never envision myself putting an end to this novel it's become my life it has always been my life probably I cannot envision myself doing anything different and if I can maybe go back now thinking a little bit of what you asked why it's because I'm happy

21:31Alex Assouline:Do you think there's going to be another chapter in the future? Another hotel? You never know. I mean, of course, if there is another chapter, it's going to be something that fits very well into the story so far. So I hope that maybe in the future something else happens, but it needs to be as powerful as it was this time, I think, because we need to be consistent. We need to put the same level of excitement, happiness, joy, love, passion, whatever, in everything that can become part of our little company or family, depending on how I want to see it. Thank you, Valentina. It was a pleasure to discuss with you.

22:17Thank you for trusting us and for translating Pasalaco in the most beautiful pages. that this book was a gift that we decided to do to ourselves. So you helped us to give something to us that will last forever.