Casa Howard Florence

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New sister guesthouse to Casa Howard Rome with inventive design, minutes from Florence station

After successfully opening two guesthouses in Rome, fashion designer Jenifer Howard and her entrepreneurial husband Massimiliano Leonardi di Casalino have applied the same formula to their private family apartments in Florence: intimate accommodation (13 rooms) in a historic, well-located house, with a clever and stylish design makeover. Their accomplishment is all the more impressive given the strict preservation laws.

This is not a hotel, they point out, but a "very high standard house aiming to host special people". And there are scores of luxurious touches to back that up: parquet floors, marble fireplaces, four-legged bathtubs, 132 different fabrics, flat screen TVs, soundproofed rooms, plus a Turkish bath and a call-out masseur should museum-ache set in. The casa looks over the basilica of Santa Maria Novella on the tranquil piazza of the same name; it's within handbag-swinging distance of Via Tornabuoni, and only a short walk from the Duomo, Uffizi and railway station.