Castagnola hosts 2027
There is a park between the Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola and Lake Lugano. It belongs to the hotel. Palms and camellias grow in it, the sort of planting that Lugano’s climate allows and most of Switzerland does not. A path runs through the grass to a private stretch of shoreline. Through the same gate, the lakefront leads west, along the water, into the old town.
That last detail is the practical one. Lugano Elegance is held in the squares of the old town, on open ground, with no fence and no ticket. In 2027 the people taking part will be staying a walk away from it.
Villa Castagnola is the hotel partner of Lugano Elegance 2027. The partnership is new, and it is not only a question of beds. Two of the three days of the event will happen inside the hotel.
Thursday is arrival, check in and the opening dinner. Friday is the Ticino Tour, a driving day through the canton, and then the Villa Castagnola Preview Show, when the field is gathered at the hotel on the day before it is judged. Saturday is the concours itself, in the centre of Lugano, free and open to anyone who walks past. Saturday closes with the gala dinner, back at the hotel.
The preview show is the part that will be new to people who have come before. A concours field is usually seen first on the morning it is judged, in public, at a distance, with a crowd around it. At Villa Castagnola the cars will be seen the day before, in a private park, by the people who brought them and by invited guests. It is a different way to look at thirty five cars. Owners get to talk to each other before the scoring starts, which is when most of the useful conversation at a concours actually happens.
The house has taken guests since 1885. It has three restaurants, of which Arté al Lago, at the water and hung with the hotel’s own art, is the one most people mean when they talk about eating there. There is a private beach, a heated indoor pool, a wellness centre and a clay tennis court. None of that is unusual for a five star hotel on this lake. The park is. Most lakefront hotels in Lugano sit directly on the road. Villa Castagnola has ground between itself and the water, and that changes what a morning there feels like.
It also changes what is possible with cars. An event of this kind moves thirty five vehicles that are old, valuable and in most cases driven to Lugano rather than trucked there. Where they sleep matters as much as where their owners do. A hotel with its own grounds can hold a field. A hotel on a street cannot.
Lugano Elegance has always argued that its setting is the reason to come. The concours is held in a working city rather than on a lawn, in Piazza Riforma and the squares around it, with the vintage market running alongside it and the public walking through. Villa Castagnola extends that argument to the rest of the weekend. The hotel is ten minutes from the squares by foot and further from them in every other sense, which is roughly what you want after three days of judging.
Packages for the 2027 edition, including rooms at the hotel, are handled through registration on the Lugano Elegance site.