Around 1920 Riccardo Gualino, a lawyer, industrialist and collector bought the Peninsula of Sestri Levante. In a book he writes:”On the peninsula, a wonderful part of coast offered me the ideal site to build a villa”.
Then he cleaned the peninsula form the ruins and the rubbles of a century of history and committed to the architects Busiri-Vici and to the art critic Lionello Venturi the construction of three new castles. Capitols, columns, mullioned and three-mullioned windows, came out from the ruins of the old Castles and Byzantine components recovered from monuments in southern Italy, became a part of the rising buildings. Between 1925 and 1929 there were built three castles: the Cypress Castle, the biggest one that became the residency of the owner, the Holm-oak Castle, used by the hosts and the Agaves Castle reserved to the servants.
During 1950 the whole complex was transformed into the de lux and refined hotel that it is nowadays, maintaining the fascinating of old and noble residency.