Catania | Maison Decò

Artist Claudia Corona runs a little B&B establishment in Catania, not 5 minutes’ walk from the main drag Corso Italia. In a sizeable apartment she inherited from a famous grandfather (Sicilian tragic actor Giovanni Grasso), with the high decorated ceilings and marble-grit flooring typical of elegant homes of its age, she’s created an original ambiance all of her own devising. She restored those ceilings to their former glory with her own hands and applied her decorative talents to some of the vintage furniture she tracked down at markets and in junk shops too: headboards, dressers and wardrobes became the unlikely canvases for her artwork.

Maison Decò has five distinctive rooms, each with a balcony and its own colour scheme dictated by those patterned floors, and all equipped with bathroom, tv, air conditioning and WiFi connection just like a proper hotel. But then it has a sitting room, a study, an ordinary domestic kitchen with breakfasts at the table, a house cat and and more-than-reasonable rates, just like an old-fashioned B&B. And the quirky details, the whimsical assortment of retro objects and furnishings, and the quaint art déco twists make it Claudia‘s very personal setup. Something a little different in Catania.

A true B&B, a home from home, that’s the concept