White nineteenth-century villa with towers standing in a lakeside garden

Lake shores · River banks · Long seasons

Management for Aparthotels and Villas on the Water

A villa on a lake is a demanding asset. It has gardens that grow faster than anyone expects, a jetty that needs annual work, a pool that must be perfect on the day of arrival, licensing that changes between one municipality and the next, and guests who are paying enough to expect everything to be flawless. We manage forty-two of them, along with six aparthotels, handling guest operations, housekeeping, maintenance, gardens, water frontage, compliance, staffing and accounts, and reporting each month in figures the owner can actually check.

Management Services Request an Assessment

About us

Estate Management Rather Than Letting Agency

The company was founded by a hotelier and an estate manager who had spent years watching lakeside villas pass between agencies that were good at photographs and bad at buildings. Their view was that a property of this kind needs to be run like a small estate: a maintenance plan measured in years, staff who know the house, contractors who answer the telephone in February, and accounts that show what the roof will need before it starts to leak. Letting is simply one activity within that, not the whole business.

Practically, that means each property is surveyed when it joins us and given a written plan covering roof, façade, drainage, heating, pool plant, garden structure, jetty and boathouse, with costs projected over five years so nothing arrives as a shock. Our own teams handle gardens, pools, housekeeping and routine repairs; specialist work goes to firms we have used for a decade and who prioritise our calls because we pay within a week. Owners approve anything above an agreed threshold and see photographs of everything afterwards.

On the guest side we run the properties to hotel standards: arrival greeted in person, house manual in four languages, concierge reachable through the stay, a cook or a full kitchen brigade if requested, boat and driver arranged, and inspection with photographs after every departure. Roughly sixty per cent of guests return within three years, which is the number that matters most to owners deciding who should hold their keys.

Frescoed interior room of a historic lakeside villa

Small motorboat passing wooden mooring poles on a lake

Advantages

What Owners Get That They Did Not Have Before

Six differences between an estate under management and a house on a booking platform.

A Five-Year Maintenance Plan

Every property receives a full survey on joining and a written plan projecting works and costs over five years: roof and gutters, render and stonework, damp, heating and cooling plant, pool filtration, electrical testing, drainage, garden structure, retaining walls, jetty timbers and boathouse. Owners see what is due and what it will cost long before it becomes urgent, and can phase expenditure across seasons rather than reacting to failures. Nothing on that plan is invoiced without prior approval, and every completed item is photographed and logged against the building's history.

Water Frontage Taken Seriously

Jetties, boathouses, slipways, retaining walls and mooring rights are the parts of a lakeside property that agencies ignore and inspectors do not. We hold and renew the concessions, arrange diver inspections of piles and anchors, replace decking and fenders on a cycle, service the boat lift, winterise the boathouse and keep the shoreline planting stable. Where a mooring permit is transferable or at risk, we say so plainly, because on many lakes the concession is worth a substantial share of the property's value.

Gardens Kept, Not Merely Cut

Shore gardens grow hard and fail fast in drought, so our gardeners work to a plan rather than a mowing schedule: pruning at the right season, irrigation checked and adjusted monthly, terraces and steps repaired, citrus and olives fed and moved under cover in winter, and replanting where a specimen is lost. Cut flowers for arrivals come from the same garden wherever possible. Owners receive photographs each spring showing the garden as it has developed, which for many is the part of the report they read first.

Staff Who Belong to the House

Each property has a named housekeeper and a named manager who work the same house season after season, supported by a pool of cooks, drivers and additional staff for larger bookings. They know where the stopcock is, which shutter sticks, which neighbour to call and how the owner likes the linen folded. Staff are employed properly, trained annually, paid above the local seasonal norm and briefed on discretion. Owners meet the people who look after their house rather than a rotating cast of agency contractors.

Compliance in One Folder

Short-term letting on these lakes involves registration numbers, tourist tax filings, guest registers submitted to the police portal, fire and electrical certificates, pool water testing, lift inspections, insurance declarations and, for historic buildings, heritage constraints on almost every external change. We hold all of it, renew it on time and keep a single folder per property that can be handed to an inspector, an accountant or a buyer at any moment. Nothing lapses because somebody forgot which authority sends which reminder.

Accounts an Owner Can Audit

Monthly statements list every booking, the gross and net of each, every expense with a receipt attached, staff hours, maintenance spend against the plan and the balance held. Our fee is a single published percentage; we take no commission from contractors, no mark-up on materials and no rebate from suppliers. Funds are transferred on a fixed date. The contract can be ended with three months' notice, and the handover file contains supplier terms, staff records, guest history and the full maintenance log without negotiation.

Services

What We Take On

Full management, guest operations, estate care, refurbishment, aparthotel operation and advice before purchase.

Panelled library room with tall bookcases in a historic villa

Full Villa Management

Everything from marketing and rate setting to the last inspection of the season: professional photography and listing, dynamic pricing, enquiry handling and guest vetting, contracts and deposits, arrival and departure management, housekeeping, laundry, garden and pool care, maintenance to plan, compliance filings and monthly accounts. Owners retain flexible personal use through a live calendar they control, and every stay ends with a photographic condition report filed against the property record.

Guest Operations and Concierge

Guests are met in person, shown the house, and given a manual in four languages plus a direct number answered from seven in the morning to eleven at night. The concierge arranges private chefs and full kitchen brigades, drivers and transfers, boat charters with skippers, restaurant tables, childcare, medical appointments, ski and golf bookings in season, and deliveries of anything the house does not already hold. Preferences are recorded so that returning guests find the same arrangements without asking twice.

Estate, Garden and Waterfront Care

Scheduled care of gardens, terraces, irrigation, pools and pool plant, retaining walls, paths, lighting, jetties, boathouses, slipways and moorings, carried out by our own teams with specialist contractors where needed. Includes winterisation and spring opening, storm response, diver inspections, boat servicing and lifting, and management of the concessions and permits attached to the water frontage. Available to owners who do not let their property at all and simply want it kept in condition.

Refurbishment and Interiors

Survey, staged plan, permissions including heritage consent, and full project management for restoration and modernisation: roofs, damp, insulation, heating and cooling, wiring, kitchens, bathrooms, window restoration, plaster and paint, and furnishing with pieces chosen for durability as well as appearance. Budgets are tracked in a document the owner can read at a glance, and we advise honestly when an improvement will not repay itself in either rental income or resale value.

Aparthotel Operation

For buildings of eight to thirty units we provide complete operation: reception and night cover, housekeeping and linen, breakfast service, revenue management across direct and platform channels, maintenance, compliance, staffing and payroll coordination, and full financial reporting. We take buildings from conversion through licensing to opening, and we run several under long lease as well as under management contract, which allows owners to choose between a fixed income and a share of the trading result.

Purchase Advice and Representation

Before buying on a lake it is worth knowing whether the mooring concession transfers, whether the boathouse is legal, what the heritage office will refuse, how the road access is shared and what the annual running cost really is. We inspect on behalf of buyers, produce realistic income and cost projections, review renovation estimates and attend negotiations and handovers. The work is charged as a flat fee, we take no commission from sellers or agents, and our reservations are always put in writing.

Contacts

Speak to the Management Office

Send the location, a description of the property and what you would like it to do. We will visit, survey the building and the water frontage, review any existing figures and return a written assessment with a realistic income projection and a clear fee proposal.

Guests already staying in a managed property should use the concierge number in their house manual, which reaches the local team directly.

OfficePiazza di Spagna 23, 00187 Roma, Italy

Phone+39 06 6789 4215

Emaillakelinevillas@icloud.com

Office HoursMonday–Friday 09:00–18:30; concierge cover daily 07:00–23:00