Found abandoned in 2009 by a French visitor out on a boat trip, Villa Cagni Troubetzkoy has now returned to its former glory on the lake after a restoration lasting nearly ten years: the story of a Russian prince fleeing the Tsar could hardly have a more surprising ending.
It was Prince Alexander Troubetzkoy, son-in-law of the great ballerina Maria Taglioni, who chose Blevio as his refuge after six years of forced labour in Siberia, a sentence imposed on him by Tsar Nicholas I for attempting an uprising. Around 1850 he had an existing rural building torn down to build his own residence, but the steep rocks of the shore forced him into a drastic measure: he blasted an entire section of cliff with dynamite, earning himself from the locals the nickname, which has survived to this day, of the “cliff-blasting” prince. The result was a villa-chalet with steeply pitched roofs and distinctive dormer windows, fitted with a bold Jugendstil lift - the only one of its kind on the lake - which still connects the lakeside building to a second wing set along the Via Lariana.
Over the course of the twentieth century the property, divided into five units with different owners and styles, fell into total neglect, until in 2009 a French visitor, Monsieur Cagni, discovered it during a boat trip with his family. It took six years to reunite the whole property and nearly a decade of painstaking restoration, entrusted to Italy’s finest craftsmen, to restore its former splendour. Today Villa Cagni Troubetzkoy, with its park rich in century-old trees, hidden grottoes and sculpted terraces, is one of the most exclusive residences on the Lario available for luxury stays.