Our Story
Love, art, and more than a lifetime of imagination.
How it began
This was Eva’s childhood home.
Long before it was a hotel, this was simply the Balestrieri family house — a plot of land in the quieter, wilder part of Anacapri, away from the center and the crowds. Eva grew up here.
Then she met Vincenzo Parlato — an eccentric, self-taught artist with an imagination that never seemed to run out. He had no architecture degree and no formal training. What he had was time, patience, and a house that needed one.
Built by hand
Domes, arches, gardens, rooms, and hidden corners.
Over the decades, Vincenzo transformed the house piece by piece, with his own hands — mixing Mediterranean, Catalan, Moorish, Liberty and classical style into a single, eclectic whole. Blue domes. Colonnades. Terraces stacked into the hillside. A scene closer to a fairy tale than a floor plan.
He named it Villa Eva. Most mornings, decades later, you can still find him somewhere on the property — there is always one more thing he’s noticed that could be better.
The family today
A real home. A real family.
For more than 35 years, this family has welcomed travelers from everywhere with the same simple hospitality they’d offer a friend. Today, the direction has passed to the next generation — Carlo, alongside his sisters and his wife Alma — who keep the spirit of the place exactly as it always was.
Eva Balestrieri
Whose childhood home this was
Vincenzo Parlato
The self-taught artist who built it by hand
Carlo, his sisters, and Alma
The generation running it today