Modern interior with exposed wooden beams, red alcoves, a beige armchair, and a light sofa. Open doorway leads to another stylish room with soft pink tones and textured wall panels.

September 10, 2026

Words: Dan Howarth

Photography: Davide Lovatti

Inside Elizabeth Unique Venice: A Historic Palazzo Reimagined By Cristina Celestino

Venice is instantly recognizable, even to those who have never set foot in Italy’s Floating City. With the distinctive inflected arches and crenelations of their Gothic facades, the palazzi lining the Grand Canal are the stuff of fantasy, drawing millions of visitors to this unique water-borne realm every year. Away from the tourist sites of San Marco and Rialto, the quieter neighborhood of Cannaregio reveals a more local, authentic side of La Serenissima (the Most Serene, Venice’s historical epithet). “This is an area where you can find a lot of Venetian people, a lot of little bottegas and artisans,” says architect Cristina Celestino, whose eponymous studio has recently transformed a historic canal-front palazzo into a 14-key boutique hotel that embraces the city’s lived-in identity, “so it’s an original place to stay.”

Although based in Milan, Celestino has deep ties to Venice, having studied architecture at the city’s Università Iuav and later designing the cocktail bar at another boutique property there, Il Palazzo Experimental, in 2019. When the family-owned Italian hotel chainlet Elizabeth Unique asked her to convert the small, 17th-century edifice into its Venice outpost, Celestino’s understanding of the location’s essential nature instinctively guided her approach, resulting in a haven that welcomes guests into a residential-style environment. “The idea was to respect the soul, the atmosphere, and the strong connection with Venice of this little building,” Celestino recalls of the two-year project, which saw the 24,000-square-foot palazzo sensitively transformed, its rooms imbued with sympathetic contemporary accents.

While the three-story interior had undergone several changes over the years, luckily its bones were still intact. Celestino stripped back layers of alterations that had accumulated over time to restore the essence of the historic structure and highlight the features that give it character. “I love the original beams of the palace, and we worked hard to reclaim them,” she offers, adding that the grand Venetian staircase connecting the building’s three floors was also retained and revitalized.

Cristina Celestino Honors Brings A Historic Structure Into The Present

  • Modern interior with exposed wooden beams, red alcoves, a beige armchair, and a light sofa. Open doorway leads to another stylish room with soft pink tones and textured wall panels.
    The living room of a top-floor suite opens onto a common lounge at the three-story Elizabeth Unique Venice, a 14-key boutique hotel in a 17th-century Italian palazzo transformed by Cristina Celestino.
  • Modern restaurant interior with beige armchairs, wooden tables, soft lighting, decorative mirrors, and large windows at the far end.
    Custom sconces and backlit wall elements in Da GrandMa, the hotel’s restaurant, were produced by a local glass studio.
  • A modern bedroom with a large bed, neutral tones, and an open door showing a dining area with a round table, four chairs, and a tall vase with flowers.
    Color unifies the bedroom and living room of a middle-floor canal-front suite.
  • Modern living room with a curved beige sofa, round ottoman, teal armchair, wood shelving, and a glass bubble chandelier under a wooden ceiling.
    Celestino’s Peonia sofa and armchair furnish another common lounge.
  • A modern bar with a copper-tiled counter, wooden bar stools, a shelf of liquor bottles, and a lamp on the counter, set against a textured gray wall and exposed ceiling beams.
    The cocktail bar is fronted with glass blocks.
  • A shelf displays a round metallic object, a framed black-and-white photo, and a tall cream-colored vase against beige vertical wall panels.
    The architect’s Muccia vase crowns a top-floor guest room’s headboard.
  • A round table with four chairs, a tall vase with purple flowers, a teapot, and cups in a softly lit room with large arched windows and a wooden ceiling.
    New painted-wood paneling complements the living room’s restored ceiling beams.

Color plays a large role in shaping the hotel’s identity and forming a strong bond with its setting. The suites and rooms on the middle floor are washed in a soft shade Celestino calls “lagoon green,” so that looking out the front windows, “you can match the color of the canal with the atmosphere of your own room.” Bold crimson tones run throughout the top floor, tied to the playful red found on roof tiles and some facades in this part of the city, while sandy hues prevail in the common areas. The palette helps “create a feeling of intimacy—that you’re in your unique space,” Celestino asserts. “Each room and each floor is different.”

The ground level comprises three zones: on one side, the hotel entrance and lobby, plus two guest rooms flanking a common area; on the other, Da GrandMa restaurant and bar, with a separate entrance; and in the back, a garden courtyard for outdoor dining. In the lobby, what typically would be an imposing reception counter is replaced by a small desk, immediately establishing the accommodations’ residential scale and tone. There’s a grander gesture in Da GrandMa next door, however, where amber-hued glass blocks wrap the cocktail bar. It offers visitors a glamorous perch for enjoying a Venetian spritz, which they can also sip in the lounge or under a parasol in the courtyard beyond—a sequestered spot that the ground-floor guest quarters open onto.

A Property Bursting With Venetian Accents

  • Bedroom with a red paneled accent wall, upholstered headboard, bedside table with lamp, neutral bedding, wooden door, and exposed ceiling beams.
    The top-floor suite’s rich color palette echoes the neighborhood’s tiled roofs and facades.
  • A beige, three-story building with arched windows and balcony faces a canal with wooden poles in front under a blue sky.
    The 24,000-square-foot, canalside palazzo is located in the quiet Cannaregio sestiere, one of Venice’s six historic districts.
  • A round marble table with three chairs, two ceramic vases, a tall white floor lamp, and neutral walls, seen through a red-framed doorway.
    Flooring in the suite’s living room and throughout is seminato, the Venetian precursor to traditional Italian terrazzo, coordinated with the respective level’s predominant palette.

The other rooms and suites are divided evenly across the two upper stories, six to a floor in identical layouts. On the middle level, the largest suite’s living room benefits from the row of elongated arched windows that, paired with a small balcony, gives the front facade its distinctive Venetian identity. The tall fenestration allows the city’s famously silvery light to illuminate the wood wall paneling and terrazzo flooring along with Calvi Brambilla’s marble-top Ettore table accompanied by Philippe Tabet’s Orchestra side chairs. On both floors, the suite and four guest rooms surround a central lounge. (Two other suites occupy the garden wing at the rear.) The doors in this common space, which is outfitted with Celestino’s sculptural Peonia sofas and armchairs, are crowned with scalloped, crestlike pediments—another nod to the vernacular. “A lot of elements come from Venice itself,” the architect acknowledges, “like the little details on the volumes, and the shapes of the new furniture.”

Contemporary elements include each bedroom’s custom upholstered headboard, its vertical channel-tufting an echo of the painted tongue-and-groove paneling on the wall behind it. Celestino’s Luminora LED pendant fixture—an airy composition of faceted polycarbonate tubes inspired by Murano glass—floats above many of the beds, while her custom sconces and backlit wall elements in the restaurant were produced by the modern Venetian glass studio Incalmi. Other lighting includes such 20th-century classics as Pietro Chiesa’s slender Luminator floor lamp from 1933 in the suites and guest rooms, and Vico Magistretti’s multi-globe Lyndon pendant from 1977 in the common lounges.

  • Modern dining area with round table and four chairs near tall arched windows, offering a view of historic buildings and a canal outside. Curtains frame the windows, and a vase decorates the table.
    The middle-floor living room enjoys a view of the canal via a quartet of arched windows with a small balcony—classic elements of Venice’s Gothic facades.
  • Neutral-toned bedroom with a double bed, beige upholstered headboard, two bedside tables with lamps, exposed wooden beams, and large curtains covering a window.
    The top-floor guest room faces the sequestered garden courtyard in the back of the hotel.
  • Red-walled bathroom with a white tub, towel, small round side table holding toiletries and flowers, and a window showing tiled rooftops outside.
    In the top-floor suite’s bathroom, a sybaritic tub is accompanied by CMP Design’s Contralto side table.
  • Modern workspace with a wooden desk, angled chair, green wall panel, floor lamp, vase with flowers, and large window with beige curtains.
    Philippe Tabet’s Esse chair joins Pietro Chiesa’s Luminator floor lamp in a second guest room.
  • A neatly made bed with white linens beside a green nightstand, a wall lamp, and a paneled green accent wall with decorative vases on a shelf.
    The custom headboard’s vertical channel-tufting aligns with the second guest room’s painted tongue-and-groove paneling.
  • Narrow hallway with frosted glass doors leads to a small bathroom featuring a round sink, wall-mounted faucets, a mirror, and terrazzo flooring.
    The bathroom in a third suite is outfitted with Meneghello Paolelli’s Brera sink, Matteo Thun and Antonio Rodriguez’s Isy fittings, and Pio & Tito Toso’s handmade Meteorite glass sconce.

PROJECT TEAM 
cristina celestino; beatrice borsetti; matteo maffioletti; vita giacovelli: cristina celestino. pianca: general contractor.

PRODUCT SOURCES 
FROM FRONT 
pianca: club chair (living room 1), sofa, armchair, ottoman (common lounges), armchairs (restaurant), table, side chairs (living rooms), side tables (common lounge 2, bathroom 1), sofa (guest room 1), desk chair (guest room 2). pulpo: glass side table (common lounge 1). incalmi: table lamps (restaurant, bar). moooi: pendant (bedroom 2). barovier&toso: tall vase (living room 2), short vases (living room 1). oluce: pendant (common lounge 2). dedar: wallcovering. stylnove: vases (common lounge 2, guest room 2). s.anselmo: glass block (bar). billani: barstools. cristina celestino: ceramic vase (guest room 1), glass vases (bedroom 1). fontana arte: floor lamp (living rooms, guest room 2). kaldewei: tub (bathroom 1). the.artceram: sink (bathroom 2). zucchetti: sink fittings. artemide: sconce. THROUGHOUT rubelli: headboard fabric, curtain fabric.

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