7 - Clementina, Still Lady of the Manor

GRAND ALBERGO TIMEO  --Taormina, Sicily

Clementina 1978

       When I met Clementina La Floresta, she  had already been at the Timeo for nearly seventy years.  She was closing in on ninety and her mind had begun to waver, but she was often alert and retained a sharp memory for the distant past. 

She was the Timeo’s owner, at least she had been.  Her adoring daughter and son-in-law had long since taken over the day-to-day management, but Clementina was usually there, seated regally in the lounge, ready to chat with guests, effortlessly diving in and out of a number of languages.

She had arrived in Sicily shortly after her eighteenth birthday to marry the owner of the esteemed Timeo, already a Taormina landmark after several decades of activity.

Portrait of Marcel Proust 1892

“I remember as if it were yesterday,” she once told me.  “My very first week in the hotel, I had the formidable task of having to escort Monsieur Marcel Proust into the dining room for dinner.  I was shaking like a leaf.”

She soon accustomed  herself to being the Timeo’s official hostess, and found herself charming the likes of Andre Gide and D.H. Lawrence (who is said to have written much of Lady Chatterly's Lover there); later Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.  Not to mention the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds and the Krupps.

At a time when world travel was reserved for the privileged, the Timeo was for connoisseurs.

In the ensuing years when I would return at Christmas, she was less chatty, but she always greeted each guest graciously with a smile, still very much the lady of the manor.

On my last visit in the early eighties, her daughter told me, with tears in her eyes,  the hotel was being sold.   It was a family tragedy, she said.  She and her sisters were born there; it had been created in 1873 by their grandfather..

Interior of the Timeo today (photo Orient Express)

There had been tensions between the siblings, and two other sisters, long since expatriated to Rome and Milan,  had preferred their part in cash.  The property was now worth much more than the hotel, itself.  It had its loyal following, but theirs had been an old- fashioned management, often wary of the modern world.    They hadn’t even wanted a pool, fearing it would attract a less desirable clientele.  

The sale had one important stipulation: Clementina and her family were to remain on the premises, and the old lady was never to be told the Timeo had been sold. 

 

In less than a year the hotel had closed down.  The buyer ended up in prison, though I never knew why.  It remained shut for many years thereafter, before being purchased by the Orient Express company.

I like to think that Clementina died in her own bed.    

-o-

PHOTOGRAPHING TAORMINA

     In those Timeo years, I had a horror of being taken for a tourist, and I tended to avoid carrying a camera in public places.

It was foolish, as I was certainly never taken for a native, no matter where I went nor how hard I tried.  I always enjoyed posing people for my hotel «portraits», but decided that scenic vistas and seascapes were best left to the postcard artists.

Unfortunately, I didn't bother to keep any postcards either.

For those who might be curious to see a bit more of Taormina, here are a few mostly black and white photos from the first part of the last century. Though well before I discovered Sicily, they better reflect the Taormina I knew than more recent photos with lots of cars and hordes of tourists (neither of which I recall from my winter trips there).

Towards the end of this two-minute slideshow are three turn-of-the-century pictures of the Timeo.  The vast terrace with its inimitable Grecian columns, majestically framing a snow-capped Mount Etna, is much as I remember.  Unfortunately, this outdoor solarium has since been transformed into a restaurant and swimming pool.

Needless to say, none of these photos are by me.  To enter, click on thumbnail below:

                                                                                         

                                              

click here

 

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

 

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  An Appointment With Destiny at the Hotel Excelsior, Florence (and still more from the Timeo at a later date)