Is it better to improve everything as much as possible? Or to improve what needs it most, perhaps growing a little less, but in a more balanced way?
For about ten years, my father and I shared the responsibility of managing a local basketball club. Volunteering in sports can be surprisingly difficult. Especially in an environment where — perhaps more in Italy than elsewhere — the debate between “winning” and “giving everyone a chance to play” is the source of endless disagreements.
How many arguments we had…
Some believed the strongest team should always receive the most support. Others disagreed, especially if that meant taking resources away from everyone else.
As far as we’re concerned, amateur sports clubs have far more important missions than simply winning games. But that’s a discussion for another day.
What we’d like to tell you instead is why our two most beautiful services are also our least contemporary ones.
Why, if you look closely, the pool has a few imperfections. And why the breakfast room doesn’t quite follow the same renewed, natural style as the bar and our newest rooms.
The reason is quite simple.
Over the past years, we had to decide where to invest our renovation efforts. And renovations were absolutely necessary.
Should we renovate the rooms? Replace the worn pool tiles and the aging drainage grates around the water? Redesign the breakfast room?
Every choice would have moved us forward in one direction while slowing us down in another. Doing everything wasn’t an option.
On one hand, there was the expectation of guests who see the photos on our website and expect a renovated hotel, only to discover that the renovation happened in stages.
On the other hand, creating a “wow effect” by modernising an already beautiful area such as the pool and garden would have been difficult to justify while still offering small bathrooms or outdated furniture in some of our old roadside rooms.
Today, we believe the structure itself is stronger.
We’ve replaced our oldest rooms with the Olivia and Olivia Convivio categories, rebuilt the heating plant, and continue to care for our services as best we can. Even if some of them aren’t the newest anymore.
In the breakfast room, we’re represented by a wonderful team. A few adjustments to the buffet layout have also made morning movement between coffee machines and hot-food stations easier and more comfortable.
The tables are the same ones we’ve had for over twenty years. The chairs creak a little. The flooring shows its age, and the lighting is hardly something that creates an emotional atmosphere.
Fortunately, the view of the garden helps. On sunny mornings, the natural light is simply unbeatable.
What we have is a functional breakfast room.
And we believe the breakfast itself has improved year after year. Guests seem to appreciate it.
So we’re happy with that.
We’re willing to sacrifice a few enthusiastic comments about aesthetics if the alternative is offering rooms that lack the comfort our guests deserve.
The same applies to the pool area.
We call it our Green Lung.
We care for the plants, flowers and lawns almost obsessively, and we believe the beauty of the park more than compensates for a pool area that may be less fashionable: plastic sun loungers, drainage grates yellowed by time, and sections of the sunbathing area where the surface has started to crack.
We’re proud of what we have. Our Brione is beautiful.
Looking at our online reviews, we know that some guests arrive with very high expectations and leave thinking:
“Nice… but.”
There are surely many reasons for that.
But when someone approached us at the basketball club and suggested buying new tracksuits for one particular team because THEY played in the most prestigious leagues and tournaments, our instinct was often to walk into the gym next door — the one without the polished wooden floor.
To check whether the other team was receiving enough encouragement.
Whether the coach had contacted the kids whose attendance had become irregular.
Whether anyone had quietly dropped out.
The teams with the new tracksuits sometimes complained.
Sometimes they even went elsewhere to play.
But the club continued its work.
It continued to grow.
And that’s exactly what Brione is doing today.
