Hotel de Russie has marked its twenty-fifth year under Rocco Forte management with a multi-year renovation programme led by group design director Olga Polizzi, with the works covering 32 bedrooms, seven suites, the lobby, and the De Russie Spa across phases running from 2021 through to a final completion target of 30 April 2026. The De Russie Spa reopened on 10 June 2025 after a dedicated refurbishment, and the final renovation phase has run from 19 October 2025 through April 2026 with work conducted only during business hours to maintain operational continuity.
This briefing reads the property at the 25th-anniversary mark, frames the Stravinskij Bar courtyard as the structurally distinctive positioning asset, and uses the broader Rocco Forte portfolio as the lens for the brand’s Italian and Mediterranean expansion cadence.
The Via del Babuino Address and the Historic Envelope
The hotel occupies the historic envelope at Via del Babuino 9, the building running between Piazza del Popolo at the northern end of the Centro Storico and the Spanish Steps walking-radius to the south. The property opened in 2000 as the second Rocco Forte hotel after Sir Rocco Forte established the independent brand in 1996, and the property has held the position as the brand’s working Rome anchor for the full twenty-five years since opening. The building had operated as a hotel under various brands through the twentieth century, with the Rocco Forte conversion preserving the historic envelope and adding the integrated Stravinskij Bar courtyard between the two wings of the building.
The 120-key inventory runs across the historic floor plates with a high suite ratio. The newly refreshed seven garden suites open directly onto the Stravinskij Bar courtyard, which is structurally rare in the Rome luxury set and one of the property’s most distinctive room-floor-plate features. The Nijinsky Suite, named for the Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky who was a frequent guest at the property in the early twentieth century, runs near the top of the suite stack and was fully refreshed in the most recent renovation phase. The Picasso Suite at the top of the stack runs the property’s largest floor plate.
The Olga Polizzi-led renovation has maintained the classical-Roman aesthetic anchor across the refresh, with the newly refreshed rooms running classical-Roman-inspired artwork and wallpaper against contemporary furnishings. The colour palette runs warm Roman ochres against contrasting deep blues and reds across the suite categories, which is a structurally consistent approach across Polizzi’s broader work on the Hotel de la Ville Rome, the Hotel Savoy Florence, and the Hotel de Russie refresh.
The Stravinskij Bar Courtyard
The Stravinskij Bar courtyard is the property’s structurally most distinctive feature and the most actively booked corporate-entertainment venue in the property for the past two decades. The enclosed garden space sits between the two wings of the historic envelope, opens to the sky, and runs year-round as an outdoor bar and dining venue. The courtyard is named after the composer Igor Stravinsky, who was a frequent guest at the property in the early twentieth century during the period when Rome was a working anchor of the Ballets Russes touring circuit.
For corporate buyers, the Stravinskij Bar courtyard runs as the structurally distinctive corporate-entertainment programming asset that the Bulgari Hotel Roma, the Hassler, the Hotel Eden, and the broader Rome luxury set have not been able to replicate. The Bulgari Roma’s fifth-floor Niko Romito terrace and the Hassler’s rooftop terrace both run outdoor dining programming, but neither has the enclosed garden courtyard floor plate that the Stravinskij Bar has built up across the past two decades. Corporate-housing buyers at three Rome-based firms and two European multinationals with Rome offices described the Stravinskij Bar courtyard to us as a default top-of-rate Rome corporate-entertainment venue across the past two decades, with the bookings concentrated in the law-firm and finance-cluster corporate-entertainment demand.
Corporate-Demand Pattern and the Rome Luxury Set
Rome’s corporate-travel demand is structurally smaller than the Milan financial-services cluster but anchors on the legal and consulting cluster running along Via Veneto, the corporate and family-office demand in the Spanish Steps and Campo Marzio walking-radius, the Vatican and diplomatic-cluster demand, the European Union institutional cluster running Brussels-Rome travel, and the broader corporate-headquarters demand in the broader Rome metropolitan area. The Via del Babuino address sits inside a five-to-ten-minute walking radius of the Via del Corso and Via Veneto corporate clusters, which gives the property a walking-radius advantage on shorter-stay corporate-program demand.
The property’s competitive set has rebalanced significantly since the June 2023 opening of the Bulgari Hotel Roma at Piazza Augusto Imperatore, which reset the Rome rate ceiling and pulled meaningful share of the top-of-rate Rome corporate-entertainment demand. Hotel de Russie has held share on the longer-stay corporate-program book and the Stravinskij Bar courtyard entertainment programming, with the corporate buyer who books the property for a longer client-visit cycle anchoring on the courtyard programming and the integrated wellness footprint. The Hassler at the top of the Spanish Steps holds share on the aspect-led demand, the Hotel Eden on the Via Veneto demand, and the sister Rocco Forte Hotel de la Ville at the top of the Spanish Steps on the broader Rocco Forte loyalty book.
The 25th-anniversary renovation has been positioned by Rocco Forte as the property’s response to the broader Rome luxury repositioning, with the design refresh running the property’s historic envelope into a contemporary-classical aesthetic that defends against the newer Bulgari and Six Senses anchors. Whether the refresh translates into structural share recapture from the newer luxury entrants is the data point worth watching across the first stabilized year after the April 2026 completion.
The Rocco Forte Portfolio and the Brand’s Trajectory
Rocco Forte Hotels operates as the independent luxury hotel group founded by Sir Rocco Forte in 1996 after the family’s sale of the broader Forte Group to Granada. The portfolio comprises Hotel de Russie Rome, Hotel de la Ville Rome (which opened in 2019 at the top of the Spanish Steps), Hotel Savoy Florence, Hotel Verdura in Sicily, Masseria Torre Maizza in Puglia, Villa Igiea in Palermo, Hotel Astoria in St Petersburg (operationally suspended), Brown’s Hotel in London, the Charles Hotel in Munich, and the recently opened Rocco Forte House Milano and Rocco Forte Costa Smeralda in Sardinia. The portfolio remains intentionally curated at roughly fifteen properties, with the family ownership structure anchoring the long-cycle development approach.
The Olga Polizzi design programme runs across the full portfolio, with the design director’s signature aesthetic anchoring the classical-contemporary balance that runs from the Hotel de Russie refresh through the Hotel de la Ville and the broader Italian properties. The structurally important point is that Polizzi’s design programme is a meaningful brand-level positioning asset for Rocco Forte, with the consistent aesthetic running across the portfolio as one of the brand’s most distinctive positioning features.
The De Russie Spa and the Irene Forte Programme
The De Russie Spa reopened on 10 June 2025 after a dedicated refurbishment phase that ran through the prior twelve months. The spa is positioned under the Irene Forte Skincare brand, the wellness line developed by Sir Rocco Forte’s daughter Irene Forte and integrated across the broader Rocco Forte portfolio. The Irene Forte programming runs the brand’s product line through the treatment menus across the Hotel de Russie, Hotel Savoy Florence, Hotel de la Ville Rome, the Verdura Resort, and the broader properties, which gives the wellness footprint a consistent retail and treatment programme that runs across the Rocco Forte loyalty book.
For corporate buyers, the spa programming runs as the integrated wellness asset for the longer-stay corporate-program demand. The footprint is structurally smaller than the Six Senses Roma’s larger spa or the Bulgari Hotel Roma’s lower-level spa programming, but the integrated Irene Forte programme is structurally distinctive and runs as one of the brand-level positioning features that the broader competitive set has not been able to replicate.
Rate Posture and the Anniversary Read
Entry-level rooms have published in the 1,200 to 2,000 euro range during shoulder weeks across the property’s most recent stabilized years, with the September-October European business-traveler peak and the May regional-headquarters cycle pushing entry rooms past 2,800 euros. Suite categories begin around 4,500 euros for the entry suite tier and climb steeply through the Junior Suite, Garden Suite, and Nijinsky Suite categories before topping at the Picasso Suite. The rate posture is structurally below the Bulgari Hotel Roma’s entry rate but consistent with the Hassler and the Hotel Eden, reflecting the long-established positioning rather than the new-property rate posture that Bulgari has held since opening.
Rate parity is enforced across direct booking, the GDS, and the consortia channels Rocco Forte participates in. The brand runs the Rocco Forte Friends loyalty programme directly for repeat clients and distributes through Virtuoso, Signature, the FHR program at American Express, and the broader consortia network. Corporate-housing desks running Rome programs can access the property’s rate posture with reasonable amenity benefits through the corporate-program channels.
The 25th-anniversary read is that Hotel de Russie has used the multi-year Olga Polizzi-led renovation programme to defend the property’s positioning against the rebalanced Rome luxury set, the Stravinskij Bar courtyard continues to run as the structurally distinctive corporate-entertainment asset, and the integrated Irene Forte spa programme continues to run as a brand-level positioning feature that the broader competitive set has not been able to replicate. The April 2026 completion of the final renovation phase will be the data point worth watching for the property’s stabilized post-refresh demand pattern.