Country

Italy

Location

Lake Maggiore

Author

YASIROV Films

Villa Rusconi Clerici Wedding Film: The Gentlemen's Villa

Updated 19 October 2026

Villa Rusconi Clerici starred in Netflix's The Gentlemen season 2. Here's what filming a real wedding there is actually like, from timing to boat arrivals.

Villa Rusconi Clerici in Verbania Pallanza is one of the best wedding venues on Lake Maggiore, and having filmed a wedding here, I can tell you why: a garden that runs straight down to a private jetty, with the Borromean Islands framing the water beyond it.

We filmed Micah and Rafael's wedding here: around seventy guests, a bride from the Philippines, a groom from Brazil, and family flying in from both sides of the world to a villa neither of them had seen before. The ceremony took place a few steps from the water, the afternoon moved onto the lake on a classic wooden boat, and the dancing lasted long enough that the film ended up being as much about the party as the vows. The teaser on this page is from Micah and Rafael's wedding. The full film isn't published yet.

The villa Netflix chose, and a real wedding in the same garden

If Villa Rusconi Clerici looks familiar, there's a reason. On 3 September 2026 Netflix released the second season of Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen, eight episodes that move the story from the English countryside to Lake Maggiore. It was shot around Verbania, Pallanza, Intra and Stresa in summer 2025, and the villa plays the Italian home of the character Bella. The production built a temporary jetty in front of the garden so characters could arrive by Riva boat.

The rest of the Italian scenes stay close by. A few streets away, the Grand Hotel Majestic hosts the show's wedding party in its Belle Époque rooms and on its terrace, and the church of San Leonardo on the Pallanza waterfront, dressed with flowers and olive trees, stands in for the ceremony church.

There's a small irony in this that we enjoy. A production spent weeks staging a fictional wedding across Pallanza, in places couples have been quietly booking for real weddings for years. Micah and Rafael's day happened in the same garden, with a real boat, a real jetty and no set dressing at all.

For couples researching the villa now, the practical point is this: screen exposure raises a venue's profile fast, and at a property this size the good dates for 2027 will go earlier than you might expect.

What the villa actually is

The house you see today isn't the original. In the mid-nineteenth century the plot held a much smaller villa. The oldest known image of the estate dates to 1857 and shows the garden from the lake. From 1859 it was home for a time to Stefano Türr, a Hungarian officer who deserted the Austrian army, fought with Garibaldi's Thousand, married a great-niece of Napoleon, and later organized the building of the Corinth Canal.

At the end of the nineteenth century that first house was demolished and replaced by the present villa, a large eclectic building with neo-baroque detailing, built for the Biffi family. There's a nice piece of local lore about its proportions: Ferdinando Biffi and his son were both over two meters tall, and the scale of the rooms is said to have been set to suit them.

Inside, most of it survives intact. The hall is dark, cool and wood paneled, a deliberate contrast with the glare off the water outside. It opens into the grand drawing room, with the tea room and study leading off it, and on the other side a dining room with an enormous walnut fireplace. Off the drawing room is the winter garden, a rare rocaille conservatory closer to a French orangerie than anything else on the lake. The main staircase runs almost the full height of the house to a coffered, painted ceiling. On bright afternoons the water throws moving light across that ceiling, which is the kind of thing you can't plan for and always try to catch.

The garden was laid out in the English manner. Its camellias (the villa counts about a hundred cultivars, some over 150 years old) most likely came from the Rovelli nursery three hundred meters up the road. A flight of steps flanked by two eighteenth-century marble lions leads up from the lawn to the terrace.

The villa has had a longer and stranger life than its calm garden suggests. In the Belle Époque it hosted the Troubetzkoy brothers and other artists working around the lake. During the Second World War a Gestapo command was quartered in the ground-floor drawing room. The Biffi family were succeeded by the Counts Rusconi-Clerici, who still hold it. Just offshore lies the tiny island of San Giovanni, Arturo Toscanini's refuge after the war.

How the day works here

The property is unusually well organized for a wedding, and the layout does a lot of the work.

Arriving by water

The villa has its own jetty, and private boats can bring you across the Borromean Gulf from Stresa or Baveno. The approach from the lake, past the islands with the house growing larger as you come in, is the best entrance the property offers. If you want one cinematic sequence out of your day, this is it.

Ceremony by the lake

A lawn runs along the water, bordered by a lakeside walk. Micah and Rafael married here, close enough that the water is in frame behind them for the whole ceremony. It also means guests look at the islands throughout, which matters when your family has traveled a long way to be there.

Aperitivo on the lawn, dinner in the pavilion

In the middle of the garden stands a wrought iron pavilion built in the manner of a late nineteenth-century greenhouse. Its lake-facing side is a single huge window, so dinner is eaten with the gulf in view. It's built in five modules of 15 by 5 meters and can be partitioned into 150, 225 or 300 square meters, seating from about 50 to 200 guests. On warm evenings it opens to the garden. On cool or windy ones it closes and is heated.

A covered gallery between villa and pavilion

A small detail that matters enormously in practice. A rain shower doesn't turn into a scramble, and guests move between house and dinner without breaking the flow of the evening. From a filming point of view, an unbroken evening is worth more than any single setup.

The ground floor is yours

Portico, great hall, staircase, dining room, drawing room, study, tea room and winter garden are all open to guests, which gives a wedding real range indoors, and a real rain plan.

Late night in the cellars

The party can carry on downstairs in the old vaulted cellars and kitchens, where a midnight plate of pizza comes out of the original bread oven. This is one of our favorite parts of the villa to film. Everyone is tired, nobody is performing, the light is low and warm, and it produces the footage couples actually watch over and over.

Ceremony options: symbolic, civil or religious

Symbolic ceremony in the garden. The most common choice for international couples. There's no paperwork and you choose the timing, which lets us place it in the best light.
Civil ceremony in Verbania. A legal ceremony has to be performed by the municipality at one of its approved locations. Verbania lists four: the town hall (Piazza Garibaldi), Villa Giulia with its lakeside garden in Pallanza, Villa Maioni and the Museo del Paesaggio. At the time of writing, fees for non-residents are €500 at the town hall, €600 at Villa Maioni or the Museo del Paesaggio, and €1,500 at Villa Giulia, paid 30 days before the date. Foreign citizens need a nulla osta (certificate of no impediment) from their own authorities, apostilled and translated. Some nationalities, including US citizens, have alternative procedures. Many couples do a short civil ceremony at Villa Giulia and then cross to the villa for the celebration.
Catholic ceremony. Held in a church nearby, arranged with the parish, before guests move to the villa.

Music hours and practical rules

Outdoor music has to end at 11 pm, and the party can continue indoors until 2 am. That's how it has worked on the days we've filmed here. The 11 pm limit is why the pavilion and the cellars matter so much for the second half of the night.

If you want drone footage of the boat arrival, tell the villa and your videographer early. Flights over the lake and near the town follow ENAC rules and need planning.

What it looks like on film

The garden and pavilion both face the Borromean Gulf, so the light that matters arrives across open water rather than raking down a hillside. Toward sunset the backdrop of lake, islands and mountains shifts color on its own, and the pavilion's glass side picks it up directly, so the dinner room lights itself for the last part of the evening.

That orientation also changes how the day is shot compared with Lake Como. On Como the shores are steep and close, and the mountains behind cut the light off early. The Borromean Gulf is wide and open, so the evening holds longer and the horizon stays visible. Boats matter here too. A wooden launch out on the water, with the islands behind it, gives a sequence with real depth, which is exactly what Micah and Rafael's afternoon on the lake produced.

The one thing to plan around is the middle of the day. On a bright summer afternoon the lawn is fully exposed. We generally build coverage so the most important portrait time falls in the last two hours before sunset, and use the terrace, the portico and the winter garden for the harder light earlier on.

At Verbania's latitude, sunset over an open horizon falls roughly at 20:50 in mid-May, 21:20 in late June, 20:35 in mid-August and 19:40 in mid-September.

The garden changes through the season. The villa describes March to June as its peak, with camellias first, then azaleas, rhododendrons, magnolias, peonies and wisteria. Roses and hydrangeas carry on into summer, and there is citrus in the old lemon house.

A sample day at the villa (June)

14:00 Getting ready in Pallanza or at your hotel
16:30 Boat arrival at the villa's jetty
17:00 Symbolic ceremony on the lakeside lawn
17:45 Aperitivo on the lawn and terrace, family photos
19:30 Couple portraits in the garden or on a wooden boat, as the light softens
20:30 Dinner in the pavilion, lake side open if the evening is warm
22:30 Speeches and first dance, before outdoor music ends
23:00 onward Party indoors, then midnight pizza from the old oven in the cellars

Villa Rusconi Clerici for an international wedding

Micah and Rafael's guest list came from several continents, and Lake Maggiore handles that well.

Milan Malpensa is the airport to use. The villa's own directions put it about 40 minutes away by car. With traffic, plan for up to an hour. That's closer than many Lake Como venues, so guests can land and arrive the same afternoon. Verbania station, about 8 km from the villa, is on the Milan-Geneva railway line. A car ferry runs from Intra, 2 km away, across to Laveno every 20 minutes or so, and Navigazione Laghi's public boats link Pallanza with Stresa and the Borromean Islands.

Verbania and Pallanza also give you a real town rather than a strip of hotels. Guests can walk to dinner, take the ferry to the islands, and visit the botanical gardens of Villa Taranto nearby if they're staying on. For a wedding where half the guests are seeing Italy for the first time, that ease matters more than couples expect at the planning stage.

If you're comparing lakes, our guide to top Lake Como wedding venues and our Lake Como destination guide cover the other side. We're based in Como, and travel and accommodation are included for weddings in Italy and Switzerland. Our weddings start from €4,500.

Planning a wedding at Villa Rusconi Clerici or elsewhere on Lake Maggiore? Get in touch or write to info@yasirov.com, and we'll talk through timing, light and boat logistics from direct experience of the property.

FAQ

How many guests can Villa Rusconi Clerici's pavilion host?

The lakeside pavilion is built in five modules and can be arranged into 150, 225 or 300 square meters, seating from about 50 to 200 guests.

Is this the villa from Netflix's The Gentlemen?

Yes. Villa Rusconi Clerici is one of the main locations of The Gentlemen season 2, released on Netflix on 3 September 2026, with scenes shot in the same garden where we filmed Micah and Rafael's wedding.

How far is Villa Rusconi Clerici from the airport?

The villa gives about 40 minutes by car from Milan Malpensa. Allow up to an hour with traffic. International guests can land and arrive the same afternoon.

Can we have a legal ceremony at Villa Rusconi Clerici?

The garden is used for symbolic ceremonies. A legal civil ceremony takes place at one of Verbania's approved locations, such as Villa Giulia in Pallanza, or at a church for a Catholic wedding.

What time does the music have to stop?

Outdoor music ends at 11 pm, and the party can continue indoors until 2 am.

When is the best time of day to film here?

The lawn is fully exposed at midday, so we build portrait coverage into the last two hours before sunset, using the terrace, portico and winter garden for the harder light earlier in the day.

When is the garden at its best?

From March to June, when the camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons are in flower. Roses and hydrangeas continue into the summer.