Secret chalets, with their tiled stoves, wood paneling, and family memories: a journey into the private homes of the ‘Regina delle Dolomiti’
To truly understand Cortina, you have to step inside its homes. It is not enough to walk through its boutiques, ski slopes, and sun-drenched terraces to grasp its soul. Now that the international spotlight is returning to the ‘Regina delle Dolomiti’ ahead of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, the resort is once again preparing to show itself to the world. But its most authentic identity remains hidden behind solid wooden doors, among warm stoves, thick fabrics, and lived-in living rooms. It is inside these homes that Cortina truly reveals its history of families, hospitality, craftsmanship, and details that are handed down rather than flaunted. This story is told in La regina delle Dolomiti. Vivere a Cortina d'Ampezzo, a book by Servane Giol with photographs by Mattia Aquila (Ed. Marsilio Arte), opens the doors of chalets, mountain huts, and private residences that are often inaccessible, offering an intimate glimpse into an alpine lifestyle of quiet elegance and domestic memories.
More than a book about architecture, it is an emotional atlas. The images linger on the details: ceramic and majolica stoves, stone fireplaces, wood paneling darkened by time, furs draped over deep sofas, tables set as if it were always a party. Wood dominates, carved, inlaid, reinterpreted in a contemporary key. Each house becomes a microcosm, where the décor is not scenography but biography. The story follows the rhythm of the seasons. Winter is warmth and matter: cozy interiors, low lighting, thick fabrics, muffled atmospheres. Summer, on the other hand, opens up to the landscape: verandas, windows wide open onto the greenery, wrought iron, copper, dolomite stone. The architecture dialogues with the mountains and seems to learn its essential grammar from nature.
© Credit: Mattia Aquila
The cultural history of Cortina also passes through these rooms. Writers, artists, intellectuals, and celebrities have chosen this place as their refuge: from Ernest Hemingway, a regular at the Hotel de la Poste, to Indro Montanelli, to the socialites who fueled the myth of the resort, such as Ira von Fürstenberg and Marta Marzotto. Different personalities, but united by the same desire: to find a private space here, far from the noise.
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