Californian-born JJ Martin has called Italy home for 24 years, starting the clothing and lifestyle brand La DoubleJ, and delighting in this sumptuous lakeside resort.
Standing inside the villa’s music room in a lemon-yellow floor-length dress, JJ Martin resembles a modern-day version of the ancient Greek lyric poet Corinna, immortalised in the neoclassical painting behind her. The cascading sea of peach, saffron and turquoise silk robes visible in the gilt-framed work seemingly extend to JJ’s elongated sleeves, which split open at the elbow and drape almost to the floor.
“If I could pick one place to live for the rest of my life, this might be it”
JJ Martin
The visual rhythm continues through the room’s oversized windows, past terraced gardens of rose, laurel, cedar and sycamore, leading the eye to Lake Como’s glassy surface beyond. Climbing from the shoreline, granite and limestone mountains extend northwards to the Alps, cradling the water like a blessed baby in its foothills.
Located in the small village of Moltrasio, this 18th-century Lake Como villa, Passalacqua, is JJ’s preferred home away from home. “If I could pick one place to live for the rest of my life, this might be it,” she says.
Her deep affinity for the property is largely due to the spiritual connection she experiences there. Seated in the garden at the base of an almost 500-year-old Magnolia grandiflora, with views across the lake from its south-western shore, she finds peace of a rare kind.
“Lake Como feels like an energetic hotspot. I have done some wild meditations, both in the water and sitting under the trees at Passalacqua; there’s definitely a strong spiritual connection there. It’s basically a straight shot into the heart of Mamma Gaia,” she observes.
Valentina De Santis, whose family owns the property, describes it as “a place of wonder where time stops … the perfect environment to disconnect from the world and reconnect with yourself’.
Located near the lake’s shore, the villa allows its visitors to surrender to that process by providing a place where they can simply observe the interplay of reflected and refracted light on the water, with deep shadows and dazzling highlights that soften to gold at dusk. “The lake is magnetic, and it is easy to become addicted to it,” Valentina says.
Passalacqua opened as a resort in 2022 after a meticulous three-year renovation. The owners worked hard to retain the spirit of the idyllic private home it had been for the three centuries prior.
“Until now, this incredible villa was the residence of illustrious families and great artists, including Vincenzo Bellini, who wrote several of his famous operas from the music room, now part of the Bellini suite,” Valentina explains. “Our goal is to keep the same feeling of home alive for our guests.”
For JJ, the secret elixir at Passalacqua, which was voted the World’s Best Hotel in 2023, is Valentina herself: “She is like a sister to me and is the consummate Italian host, who treats everyone who comes through the door like an old friend. That’s how she creates this feeling of home, along with her eye for beauty and style.”
Their creative connection deepened when they worked together on designing aspects of the pool area, a process that felt like a natural extension of their friendship. JJ recalls jumping at the opportunity and feeling that the project had “the perfect convergence of energies and was meant to be”.
Valentina wholeheartedly agrees: “As with all good things in life, it happened for a reason. JJ was meant to be at Passalacqua. We aimed to bring meraviglia [wonder] into a place already full of marvels. JJ – a friend, genius and inspiration – was the only person that came to mind to add her magic to the area. She achieved what I expected and hoped: she brought joy.”
The project included converting the interiors of a vast, sunlit glasshouse into a colour- and pattern-filled setting for morning or afternoon tea, lunch or aperitivo. JJ also designed the poolside bar, the flower-shaped pool umbrellas, and more. “They wanted something playful, punchy and vibrant with the La DoubleJ touch,” JJ says. “We tackled it all, from the napkins, the custom-tiled tabletops, the plants, the cushions … even the ashtrays!’”
While Passalacqua cemented JJ’s love affair with the area, it had begun in earnest years earlier when she met Como local Lucia Mantero. “I first met Lucia when her father invited me to his home on Lake Como, and we clicked immediately. She had an eclectic Italian style that spoke to my own, a blend of super chic Milanese with a touch of country girl,” JJ recalls.
Lucia and her family became early champions of JJ’s vision to create a retroinspired, maximalist clothing and lifestyle label, providing her with unfettered access to the vast Mantero textile archive, established by Lucia’s forebears in 1902.
“The first time I went to their archives in Como, I just dived into the thousands and thousands of their printed fabrics, all on these handkerchief-sized swatches. I sat there in absolute ecstasy,’ JJ recalls. “We had no idea how impactful this collaboration would be and how quickly La DoubleJ would grow. We would never be where we are without Mantero. Their faith, generosity and support are really what allows La DoubleJ to thrive. Even though we now design many of our patterns in-house, we always visit the Mantero archives for inspiration.”
Lake Como offers JJ a winning quadrella: design inspiration, creative collaboration, friendships that feel like family, and Passalacqua. So it is unsurprising that it has become her spiritual home.
“I am a Taurus, so my environment is very, very important to me. It’s definitely something I need to curate. I need a wonderful, beautiful container that feels well structured, organised and visually pleasing. That’s how I get my sense of safety. And then I can create from that place,” she explains. This inescapable link between JJ’s wellbeing and the interiors she spends time in is expressed as much at Passalacqua as it is in her apartment in Milan and her boutique.
“It’s the reason our motto at La DoubleJ is ‘Raise Your Vibration’. The environments you create, the spaces you build around you, and how you adorn yourself on the outside impact how you feel inside. Colour and print have vibrational frequencies that can elevate your energy, your mood, your state of being, and your creative fire.”
It was this philosophy that originally drew Valentina to JJ. “I love her spirituality and optimism, and it’s so infectious for the people who are close to her. Because what is elegance without joy?”
JJ’s endeavours are more than a vocation. “Creativity has been my lifeboat through some pretty stormy moments in my life. With the help of much deep energy work, I finally surrendered to the wisdom of the universe and realised every roadblock on my journey was put in my path to fertilise a new growth spurt in another direction, which would eventually become La DoubleJ; that was what was growing in my gut, my joy baby of a brand that I have been feeding, and has fed me so much ever since.”
This is an edited extract from This Creative Life (Thames & Hudson) by Robyn Lea.
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