“The history of the Hotel begins from the Palazzo Scalabrini, a beautiful and solid bourgeois abode, located in the town of Cima Piazza, in a preminent and visible position, along the road that leads to the old bridge that connect the village of Giubiasco and the area around the parish church of Camorin’s land and then Monte Ceneri. The building still has the same plan as the one developed in 1868 by the surveyor Giuseppe Roncajoli.
The architectural configuration is very simple. The main façade, delimited by a shell cornice, on the ground floor a regular porch with five arches, supported by a colonnade (five columns, two corner pillars) in «sarizzo», granite, non-homogeneous work, tied together by rods; the main portal in the middle opens, with granite frame and wooden carved door (left 1644; acronym PS; on the right the emblem of the Scalabrini – a tree with a golden lily on the right, left a rampant lion); on the two upper floors there are five simple apertures, with shaped windowsills.
This regula apertures arrangement also exists on the other façades, except on the right side where two full-sixth arc open out apertures and shedding light on the stairwell. The roof is made by slopes, with a tower with windows and neo-Gothic battlement in the center, today replaced by a common and recent functional roof. The exterior is characterized by the obvious remains of a rich and whimsical pictorial decoration, which extends on all the facades (fake hanging arches and acanthus leaves on the edge; framing on the windows) probably dating back to the mid-XIX century.
The interior is well preserved in its original arrangement and texture. On the central corridor on the ground floor, there are four rooms with vaulted ceiling and an airy staircase leading to the two upper floors and attic.
On the first and second floors, hidden by recently crafted lowered ceilings, there are still the original ceilings of squared beams and axe, painted in a light blue color. Some original windows (doors) are also preserved.
Large and airy vaulted cellars, made of exposed stone, harmoniously complete the functionality of the building.
Despite the dating on the door, it is likely that the Scalabrini house was built between the middle of the XVIII century and the first decades of the XIX century, perhaps repurpose materials of a previous abode existing on site: the regularity and the typology of the central tower, the proportions of the entire building speaks in this sense.
The fact remains that we are in the presence of a beautiful and solid construction, among the most characteristic of the village of Giubiasco”.
Giulio Foletti
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