Hotel of the Week: This Zaha Hadid Masterpiece in Rome Offers an Unprecedented View Into Ancient Ruins

Flowing through the courtyard and retreating into the cave-like Sisley Paris spa, the futuristic lagoon has a glass bottom, creating an underwater viewing portal above the Ripetta ruins. Excavated over eight years and requiring more than 300 government permits, the site resembles a drained stone grotto. “Wellness is the big approach for the [luxury hotel] target,” Ivan Russo, the project’s lead architect, explains, “but in this hotel, we’re not going to the wellness, we’re going to the well.”

Wells, waves, rivers—the shape of water inform the design of the 74-room “urban resort.” Russo reskinned the historic property with undulating Macassar ebony veneer as dark, glossy, and fluid as melted chocolate. It’s spilled across the suite floors and woven into dramatic headboard walls; molded into groovy bed frames with integrated benches and nightstands; and stretched into tree-like canopies at the Alain Ducasse restaurant, one of four dining options and the French chef’s first in Rome. The choice is both spiritual, echoing Specchi’s unusual wave-shaped staircase once linking port and the piazza above, and practical. The flexible cladding’s spacey swoops and rippling curves reshape the manor’s geometry without altering its 16th-century structure beneath.

Eternal City hoteliers and tourists tend to get trapped in a Renaissance troupe, making Romeo Roma’s approach sparkle and fizz like the spritzes at the rooftop Champagne bar. The past isn’t ignored, only balanced. Spanish and Italian marble brings aristocratic gravitas, and among owner Alfredo Romeo’s private collection of contemporary Clementes and Pomodoros are original frescoes, displayed in the bi-level Fresco Suites beneath baroque gold ceilings.

While excavating the on-site ruins, archaeologists uncovered a marble head of Livia Drusilla, wife of the emperor Augustus. She’s since been restored to a place of honor, in the lobby, near the modern twin fountains whose harp-string streams of water form the wellspring of the pool.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Spring Issue in the “Artful Life” section. Subscribe to the magazine.