The Avino Family — Giuseppe → Mariella, Attilia & Mariavittoria →

1 · A palazzo before a hotel

Palazzo Avino occupies a historic building in Ravello whose origins are traditionally traced to the twelfth century. Long before the Avino family entered the story, the house possessed architecture, elevation and views that no hotel brand could manufacture. The first hospitality asset was the palazzo itself.

2 · The Avino family

The modern hotel story belongs to the Avino family. Giuseppe Avino acquired the historic property and undertook the long restoration that returned it to hospitality use. The family did not inherit a functioning luxury hotel; it had to recover one from a historic building.

3 · 1997 — Palazzo Sasso

The restored hotel opened in 1997 as Palazzo Sasso. Its revival placed Ravello back into the conversation of high-end Amalfi Coast hospitality and created the platform later known as Palazzo Avino.

4 · Third generation

Mariella Avino represents the third generation of the family hospitality story and works alongside her sisters Attilia and Mariavittoria. The modern Palazzo Avino is therefore not a single-person creation. Mariella’s role is defining, but it sits inside active family stewardship.

5 · Learn the house from inside

Mariella grew up around the hotel and developed her professional identity inside the family institution. This type of formation differs from joining a global hotel group: the operating manual is partly written in family memory, repeat-guest relationships and knowledge of one building.

6 · Owner presence

Palazzo Avino’s independent luxury is strengthened by visible family involvement. The owner is not an anonymous capital structure behind a management company. Family presence becomes part of the service proposition and gives repeat guests continuity across seasons.

7 · 2013 — Become Palazzo Avino

The hotel changed its name from Palazzo Sasso to Palazzo Avino in 2013. The renaming was strategically significant: the family name moved to the front of the house. Ownership, identity and brand became explicitly aligned.

8 · Put the family name on the door

Renaming a famous hotel is risky. In this case, the change declared that the institution’s future would be tied to the family responsible for its restoration and operation. The name itself became a promise of continuity.

9 · Ravello, not Amalfi generic

Palazzo Avino’s identity is inseparable from Ravello: elevation above the coast, gardens, music history, stone streets and extraordinary views. The hotel does not need to imitate beach-resort hospitality. Its luxury comes from being above the sea rather than directly on it.

10 · The view as architecture

Terraces, windows and public rooms repeatedly orient guests toward the Mediterranean. Like Le Sirenuse, Palazzo Avino understands that one of the most expensive design mistakes would be to compete with the landscape. Interiors frame the view rather than attempt to replace it.

11 · Pink

Pink became one of the most recognizable contemporary codes of Palazzo Avino. Used through branding, flowers, fashion, accessories and playful details, it gives the historic palazzo a lighter personality. The colour works because it contrasts with rather than imitates the building’s historical gravitas.

12 · The Pink Closet

The Pink Closet boutique turns Mariella’s fashion sensibility into a hospitality extension. Curated clothing, accessories and collaborations allow the hotel’s visual identity to move beyond guestrooms and into objects guests can take home. Retail becomes curation rather than logo merchandise.

13 · Fashion as hospitality

Mariella’s approach demonstrates that fashion can function as a layer of hotel authorship without turning the property into a fashion-brand hotel. The hotel remains Palazzo Avino; fashion collaborations animate it seasonally and give the owner another medium for expressing taste.

14 · Lobster & Martini Bar

The Lobster & Martini Bar is one of Palazzo Avino’s clearest contemporary signatures. The concept is simple enough to remember and specific enough to belong to the property: an extravagant pairing of luxury ingredients, cocktails and the Ravello view. Food-and-beverage becomes brand memory.

15 · Rossellinis

Rossellinis gives Palazzo Avino a serious gastronomic anchor. Fine dining prevents the hotel’s playful contemporary identity from becoming superficial. The institution can be pink, fashionable and social while still demanding culinary credibility.

16 · Food with two temperaments

The combination of Rossellinis and the Lobster & Martini Bar illustrates portfolio thinking inside one hotel. One space is refined and gastronomic; the other is playful and immediately legible. Luxury hospitality does not require every outlet to speak in the same voice.

17 · The Clubhouse by the sea

Ravello is high above the Mediterranean, which creates both its magic and its limitation. Palazzo Avino’s Clubhouse by the Sea answers the missing-beach problem through a separate coastal experience. The hotel does not distort its hilltop identity; it adds access to the sea elsewhere.

18 · Do not force the palazzo to be a beach resort

This is one of the strongest strategic lessons in the property. The palazzo should remain a palazzo. The sea experience can exist as a complementary extension. A singular hotel becomes stronger when it acknowledges what it is not.

19 · Historic gravity, contemporary lightness

Mariella’s most distinctive contribution is tonal. Palazzo Avino could easily have become solemn — historic stone, antique references, formal service, elevated gastronomy. Instead, colour, fashion, flowers, cocktails and personal warmth prevent heritage from becoming heavy.

20 · Sisters as stewards

Attilia and Mariavittoria Avino remain part of the family stewardship alongside Mariella. The division of public visibility should not be confused with sole authorship. Palazzo Avino’s strength comes partly from a family system in which different members contribute to continuity.

21 · Small hotel, global recognition

Palazzo Avino has achieved international visibility far beyond its scale. This is a recurring pattern among great independent hotels: a small number of rooms can generate disproportionate cultural and commercial relevance when place, service and personality are unusually coherent.

22 · Independence as a creative advantage

Independent family ownership allows Palazzo Avino to make decisions that a global brand might consider too personal, seasonal or idiosyncratic. Pink identity, fashion curation and highly specific food concepts work precisely because the house does not need to fit a standardized brand manual.

23 · The hotel as family portrait

Over time, a family-run hotel becomes a portrait of the people who steward it. Giuseppe’s restoration, the sisters’ management, Mariella’s contemporary taste and the work of chefs, designers and staff accumulate in the same building. The hotel’s identity is layered rather than launched.

24 · What she changed

She helped move Palazzo Avino from restored historic luxury into a more distinctive contemporary family brand. She made the Avino name itself central to the hotel identity after the 2013 renaming. She introduced or amplified memorable contemporary codes around pink, fashion, retail and playful food-and-beverage. She strengthened the hotel’s ability to speak to a new generation without abandoning Ravello, the palazzo or family ownership. She demonstrated that an independent historic hotel can be serious in service and gastronomy while remaining visually joyful and personally expressive.

26 · Mariella Avino and Antonio Sersale

Both are later-generation custodians of iconic family hotels on the Amalfi Coast. Antonio Sersale deepens Le Sirenuse through art, wellness, retail and editorial culture while protecting its domestic atmosphere. Mariella gives Palazzo Avino a brighter, fashion-inflected contemporary voice. Sersale expands the meaning of the house. Avino changes its tone.

27 · Mariella Avino and Marie-Louise Sciò

Both are women transforming inherited Italian coastal hospitality through strong personal taste. Marie-Louise Sciò works as architect, designer and creative director across a small hotel collection. Mariella’s authorship is more owner-hotelier and brand-curatorial, especially through fashion, colour and guest experience. Sciò redesigns the hospitality world. Avino styles the family house.

28 · Mariella Avino and kit Kemp

Both use colour, textiles, art and personality to make luxury hospitality feel authored rather than standardized. Kemp creates complete interior worlds through professional design practice. Avino works through family ownership, curation, collaborations and hospitality programming. Kemp designs the room. Avino curates the mood.

29 · LHL connections

• Palazzo Avino · Ravello — defining hospitality institution · restored family hotel opened 1997 as Palazzo Sasso · renamed Palazzo Avino 2013.
• Giuseppe Avino — defining family owner-restorer of the historic palazzo.
• Attilia Avino · Mariavittoria Avino — sisters and family co-stewards.
• Rossellinis — defining gastronomic restaurant.
• Lobster & Martini Bar — defining contemporary food-and-social concept.
• The Pink Closet — fashion and retail extension.
• Clubhouse by the Sea — complementary coastal experience.
• Ravello · Amalfi Coast — inseparable defining geography.

30 · Timeline

• 12th centurytraditional origins of the historic Ravello palazzo later occupied by the hotel.
• 20th centurythe property passes through periods of changing use before its restoration by the Avino family.
• 1997the restored hotel opens as Palazzo Sasso.
• 2000sthe property establishes itself as one of Ravello’s leading independent luxury hotels.
• 2013Palazzo Sasso is renamed Palazzo Avino, placing the family name at the centre of the brand.
• 2010sMariella, Attilia and Mariavittoria Avino increasingly shape the contemporary family stewardship of the property.
• 2010s–2020sthe Pink Closet, fashion collaborations, Lobster & Martini Bar, Rossellinis, Clubhouse by the Sea and other experiences deepen the hotel’s contemporary identity.
• 2020sMariella Avino continues as Managing Director and a defining public and creative voice of the family hotel.

31 · LHL story — Put the Family Name on the Door

The hotel already has a famous name.

Changing it is dangerous.

But the family restored the building.

The family runs the house.

The family greets the guests.

So stop hiding the ownership behind an inherited label.

Put the family name on the door.

The risk becomes the promise.

32 · A second story — Do Not Make the Palazzo a Beach Resort

The hotel sits high above the sea.

Guests want the water.

Do not flatten the identity of Ravello by pretending the palazzo is on the beach.

Keep the terraces.

Keep the height.

Keep the view.

Then create another place below where the guest can swim.

The missing experience does not always belong inside the flagship.

33 · Legacy

Mariella Avino belongs in the Luxury Hospitality Library because she demonstrates how a later generation can give a historic family hotel a contemporary voice without severing it from architecture, place or family memory. Palazzo Avino’s physical grandeur came before her, and the family restoration that reopened the hotel in 1997 belongs to an earlier generation. Her authorship lies in tone and evolution: making the Avino name visible, introducing a playful pink code, connecting fashion and retail to hospitality, strengthening memorable food-and-beverage concepts and presenting the historic palazzo with warmth rather than solemnity. The result is not a lifestyle brand imposed on Ravello. It is a Ravello family house learning to speak contemporary luxury in its own accent. The unresolved question is the same one faced by all highly personal family hotels: how to keep the personality alive as the institution passes to another generation without reducing that personality to a set of repeatable visual motifs.