Bellagio
Private houses
The village on the promontory where Lake Como divides. The most visited address on the lake, and still one of the hardest to buy into.
Stay
Houses, nothotel rooms.
A short list of villas and residences we know personally, most of them family houses, taken for a week at a time, with the people who look after them.
Six houses Sleeping 6 to 16
What you are paying us for is not the house. It is the week around it: the boat held for your dates, the table on the Thursday, the car at seven in the morning.
01The list
Fewer houses,known properly.
We have stayed in, or worked on, every house here. Rates are the owners rates. What you are paying us for is the week around the house: the cook, the skipper, the tables, the car at seven in the morning.
02Staffing
The week aroundthe house.
A house is only as good as the morning it gives you. We arrange the cook, the housekeeper, the skipper and the driver before you arrive, and we brief them properly on how you take breakfast, when the children swim, which nights you want the kitchen empty.
Before arrival
House opened, provisioned, staffed
During
One number, answered on the lake
On the water
Boat and skipper held for your dates
Afterwards
Nothing to settle, nothing to chase
Dates
Tell us the week,and who is coming.
July and August are usually taken by the previous February. If your dates are fixed, the earlier we know, the better the house.
Questions
How far ahead should you book a villa on Lake Como?
For July and August, the better houses are usually taken by the previous February. Outside those two months there is far more room.
If your dates are fixed by school holidays, treat the previous autumn as the moment to start. If you have any freedom, late April to early June and September are both easier to book and, in our view, better weeks to be here.
What is included when you take a house through Como Private?
The house at the owner's rate, plus the week around it: the cook, the housekeeper, the skipper, the driver and the tables, arranged and briefed before you arrive.
What staffing a particular house comes with varies, and we set it out in writing for each one. The part that is consistent is that you have one number to call on the lake rather than five.
Can you rent a villa on Lake Como with a boat?
Yes. Some houses come with their own boat and mooring; for the rest we hold a boat and skipper for your dates.
A house with a private landing stage changes a week here more than almost anything else, because it turns the lake into the road. Where a house has no jetty of its own we arrange collection from the nearest one.
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