“Is That Necessary?”
How I Bought a Hotel — Part Two
This is part two: on white paint, 7 meter sofas, and the vision your dad will never fully understand.
If you missed part one: read it here
While we were negotiating the purchase of Principe di Salina, Filippo moved to Jeddah.
I mention this because if you have ever tried to obtain a Saudi visa you will understand that this added a particular layer of complexity to what was already a complicated situation. If you haven’t — imagine a paper trail that requires visits to embassies in multiple countries, blood tests, documents that need other documents, and a timeline that operates on its own Arab sovereign logic entirely unrelated to yours.
So the design of Principe di Salina happened across: Salina, Jeddah, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and various embassy waiting rooms. We were also relocating a cat and an entire house to a compound. I mention the cat because if you know how much I love my cat you can understand the level of stress involved in producing a visa for him as well. I might have forged a few documents but I am not admitting this here. If you need to relocate animals internationally — contact me. I am THE expert.
When you have a white canvas and no starting point — and we had both — the first thing you need before anything else is a vision. Not a mood. Not a feeling. A direction.
I worked with Eva and Clara from Design Anarchy to define it. We built a document — one hundred pages of Pinterest images, references, mood boards, colour studies, the whole elaborate architecture of a person who knows exactly where they are going and needs to prove it on paper.
I presented it to my parents.
My mum was enthusiastic. My dad looked at it carefully. He looked at me. He said:
“I didn’t understand anything. What do we have to do?”
I laughed. To me that document was a crystal clear roadmap. I was so proud of it. Every image connected to the next. The palette was obvious. The direction was unmistakable.
To my dad — a brilliant IT CEO who had agreed to oversee a hotel renovation on a volcanic island while his daughter was in various embassies producing documents for a cat — it was one hundred pages of beautiful confusion.
This became the soundtrack of our renovation. Me, certain. Him, patient and slightly panicking. The question delivered daily, calmly, with the particular energy of someone who loves you very much and is trying very hard:
“Anita — is that necessary?”
Me: Let’s turn it all white. Him: Is that necessary?
Me: I bought a seven-meter white sofa. Him: Is that necessary?
Me: All the pendant lights must all be different — I need twelve. Him: Is that necessary?
Yes. All of it. Necessary. Obviously necessary. I should have had this printed on a t-shirt.
Here is the thing about having a vision when your budget is not unlimited — and our budget was very much limited, see previous chapter about no external investors and not very many crumbs — you cannot do everything at once. But you can do the right things first. And the right things, done well, carry everything else until the budget catches up.
White paint was the right thing first.
Paint is underrated. Genuinely, seriously, embarrassingly underrated. The right colour on the right walls will do more for a space than furniture that costs ten times as much. My secret indulgence is that I love dark rooms — deep colours, drama, walls that make you feel held. But it wasn’t right for Principe. Principe needed light. The sea outside, the sky, the geometry of the Aeolian architecture — it all asked for white inside too. Which is funny, because traditional Sicilian design is actually very dark. We disagreed with tradition. Tradition survived.
So we painted everything white and then worked backwards from there.
Which brings me to Amsterdam. And the best forty-eight hours of the entire renovation.
My friend Nils is one of those people who touches something and makes it beautiful. I adore people like this — people for whom aesthetic decisions are as natural as breathing, who see a space and immediately understand what it needs without being able to explain why. Nils has this completely. Nils also designed the Principe logo years earlier, while I was still in corporate life, still dreaming. He believed in the project before I fully did. When you are about to do something crazy — have believers around you. They are worth more than any budget.
I brought Nils and our friend Ilian to a design warehouse in Amsterdam where a mix of brands were showing furniture, textiles, lighting, everything. We had forty-eight hours. I had a list. I had measurements. I had twelve rooms to furnish and a very clear sense of what I needed and exactly how many of each thing.
I was pragmatically counting pendant lights when I lost Nils.
I found him twenty minutes later on the other side of the warehouse. He had located the textile section. He was throwing pillows on the floor. Hundreds of pillows — different sizes, same palette, mix of fabrics, textures, patterns — just throwing them, building a mountain, completely absorbed, completely certain.
People were walking around the mountain he was creating.
He looked up at me with the expression of someone doing something entirely reasonable: “You have a lot of terraces. You need pillows.”
And kept throwing.
I stood there thinking about one thing only: how do I ship all of this to Salina?
(The answer, it turns out, involves a boat, a van, two very patient men, and a level of logistical optimism that I have since applied to most problems in my life. Everything arrived. Most things survived. The pillows are still there.)
Here is what forty-eight hours in Amsterdam, several embassies, and one hundred pages of Pinterest taught me about renovating on a budget:
Buy large. Always. Even — especially — when the space feels small. A large rug grounds a room in a way ten small ones never will. A statement piece tells the room what it is. Large says: we meant this. Large says: we are not decorating, we are deciding. The seven metre white sofa has anchored every conversation, every aperitivo, every long evening that turned into stories for nine seasons. My dad asked if it was necessary. It was the most necessary thing I bought.
Don’t impulse buy when you have to buy a lot. Measure. Check. Hold the vision in your head — the one your dad doesn’t understand but you can see completely clearly — and ask whether each thing belongs in it. If it does, buy it. If it doesn’t, leave it. Even if it’s beautiful. Especially if it’s beautiful. Beautiful things that don’t belong in your vision will quietly undermine it over time.
And paint. When in doubt — paint. White if you need light. Dark if you need drama. But paint first and ask questions later. It costs almost nothing and changes almost everything.
First year Principe wasn’t perfect. Things were covered temporarily with white paint that needed more time and more money. Pillows and carpets and fabric panels were doing the work that furniture would eventually do. Pendant lights existed in some rooms and not others. The terraces had cushions courtesy of Niels and his magnificent mountain.
But the bones were right. The vision was right. Guests felt it — not the imperfection, but the intention underneath it. The sense of a place that knew exactly what it was trying to become.
My dad came to see it after I finished decorating. He walked around. He looked at the seven metre white sofa. He looked at the pendant lights — all different, all twelve. He looked at the terraces full of pillows.
He said nothing.
Which, from my dad, is the highest possible praise.
As with the most beautiful projects in life, it is still ongoing.
But it is all white now. Almost.
Follow along. This is just the beginning.
Con affetto,
Anita