A Mediterranean hideaway

Goethe described this place as « the land where the lemon trees bloom ». Almost 250 years later, the citrus fruit here still inspires people, but they’re now more likely to be interior designers than lyric poets. Lemon, Cedar, Lime and Grapefruit are the names (and colours) of the four rooms of this cosy little B&B on the borders of the Amalfi coast. Making its own contribution to an ongoing dialogue between tradition and modernity, Limoncello Rooms occupies a 1930s building overlooking the historic road that used to connect Salerno to Vietri Sul Mare, just a short distance from the futuristic Stazione Marittima ferry port designed by Zaha Hadid.
The interior design, by young designer Luciana Ciaco, makes use of colour, first and foremost, to inject a strong sense of personality into the living-space, starting with the entrance hallway to the bedrooms, which gives guests a warm welcome with its bright and breezy atmosphere. Here, the bright yellow pendant tubes of the suspended ceiling look like a shower of sunbeams, and the same colour is reprised in the alcoves, which accommodate seats and tables by way of a minimalist lobby recessed into the wall. This design-oriented styling not only gives the interior a boldly contemporary character, but also makes the limited space look as large as possible by pairing white with yellow.
All the bedrooms have their own bathroom, and are embellished with one-off pieces handmade by Salerno-based designers and craftspeople, including the beds, table lamps, furnishing complements and fabrics. The use of colour as a distinctive signature for each room is enhanced by the wide range of discerningly chosen glazed porcelain tiles by Ceramica Vogue, which appear in various colours, models and sizes (20×20, 10×10 and 10×20 cm), to suit the desired mood. So the rooms give guests a choice of natural, earth colours; warmer, brighter shades of orange; an elegant, traditional pairing of majolica and gloss black tile; and a trendy, geometric design based on the optical effects of the coloured grouting between the tiles. The bathrooms are a perfect showcase for the infinite scope for expression that ceramic affords. They combine pure expanses of solid colour (Ice, Apricot, Papaya, Coral, Yellow, Mint and Black) with the tactile, textural quality of surface finishes such as satin (Interni line) and gloss (Trasparenze), a retro-flavour bevelled profile (Bisello) and a non-slip roughness (Grip and Flooring) that’s as practical as it is appealing.