In Georgia, 19 kilometers from the capital of Adjara, Batumi, in a picturesque place with tropical plants, near the ruins of the Byzantine fortress of Petra, there is a 24-meter high rocky ledge protruding into the sea. This point of the coast is the territory of the Tsikhisdziri resort, where the Nauka boarding house worked until 1991. But few people remember that the former building of this boarding house had a different name - Castello Mare, which translated from Italian means "Sea castle" or "Castle over the sea". The old building was laid on this ledge in 1905. In a 1910 guidebook for the resort coast near Batumi, there is a mention of it: “… Not far from Tsikhisdziri station, on a separate rock between the railway line and the sea, the Castello Mare villa is being built in the form of a castle, known as a dacha Skarzhinsky. The originality of the building and the rare beauty of the place involuntarily attract the attention of all passing by. The balcony of this summer house hanging over the sea is interesting, from which wonderful views open up …"
In the Soviet years, the Villa Castello Mare was redesigned for the needs of a multi-bed boarding house, and the original architectural solutions disappeared: the cantilever balcony was cut off, and in the lower part of the building - along the edge of the cliff, instead of a panoramic platform with stairs and exits to massive buttresses - showers were built.
Over the past 100 years, the building of the Nauka boarding house has become dilapidated and not subject to reconstruction, which led to its demolition in 2004. From the former Castello Mare, a large retaining wall with unique stone buttresses has been preserved, which held the upper platform with a garden of tropical plants and age-old trees. On the other hand, on the side slope of the cliff, a bamboo grove has grown with a gazebo on a small ledge 12 meters high above the water. In a natural bay, there is a descent to the sea with access to large stones - ancient rock fragments, and an entrance to a small grotto.
The initiator of the development of Tsikhisdziri and the customer of the project was the Georgian company Karapi LTD. In 2009, an architectural competition was held, the purpose of which was to determine the appearance of the future hotel. The work on the project was entrusted to a small team of authors, which included Moscow architect Lev Nodelman and Tbilisi designer Givi Khomeriki.
The aim of the boutique hotel project was to combine the structure of a five-star hotel and the eclectic framing of the romantic Castle Above the Sea. The authors of the project tried to carefully and compactly place the buildings of the complex on the construction site so as not to disturb the natural microclimate of Tsikhisdziri and to preserve the resort qualities; they took into account the height of the ledge above the sea of about 24 meters and the depth of the coast of 100 meters, creating an architectural composition with an emphasis on the rocky ledge - with the vertical of the central spire. From the side of the approach road descending to the complex with many turns, one can see the slender silhouette of the building with spiers, open balconies, terraces and facade light clocks with a stained glass dial in the form of a peacock's tail. And from the side of the sea, the observer can see the silhouettes of snow-white buildings on the rock, immersed in the lush Adjarian greenery.
The layout of the complex was affected by the unfavorable passage of the existing single-track railway. She divided the complex of railway galleries into two logical parts - a building with spiers, a second residential building and a villa on the coast of the bay from the sea side, and a two-storey annex building with a parking lot on the side of the access road. At the final stage, individual buildings within the complex received their own names. So, the central part, the building with spiers, was named "Victoria", the second 10-storey building on stilts became "Diana", and the villa in the bay was named "Aphrodite". These names emphasized the individuality of the complex.
There was no engineering infrastructure on the building site. The engineering project added treatment facilities, water wells and environmentally friendly geothermal heat sources. At the same time, it was possible to implement the requirements for the number of rooms: rooms - with spacious balconies or terraces, sliders are used in the glazing. The layouts and bathrooms of the rooms are original and equipped according to the international classification for five-star hotels. In total, the complex has designed 8 categories of rooms - from family suites to the presidential suite under the dome on the top floor of Victoria.
In the residential building "Diana" on the 6th and 7th floors there are two-level cell rooms. The layout is based on the F-type cell scheme of the constructivist M. Ya. Ginzburg. But the scheme differs from the famous cell in the House of Narkomfin by the increased width between the transverse axes - 5.7 m. The staircases of the upper room-cell were divided and stood on the side walls. A plumbing box and a ventilation shaft were placed along the inner wall of the living room, which connected engineering networks between the rooms-cells and the rest of the single-level floors of the building. The bathrooms of the upper and lower cell rooms are placed between the stairs one above the other, separating the halls and bedrooms on the other side of the building. The height of the ceilings in living rooms with a balcony on the sea side is 3.8 m.
The original solutions concerned the layout of the lower floors. The technical task of the project required to place: a spa with an indoor pool and a medical center, an entertainment center and a bowling alley, a restaurant and a conference hall for 200 seats, a lobby bar with its own kitchen, recreational spaces and a reception desk, premises for engineering equipment and staff, a tennis court and closed parking. It was necessary to organize logistics between the internal premises, excluding the exit of clients and hotel staff to the street in bad weather. A bowling alley with 4 lanes is located between the retaining wall on the cliff and the railway gallery. The spa center on the 1st floor of the complex is combined with the indoor pool hall and is located on the same floor with the medical center. On the other side of the railway, in a two-storey annex there is a restaurant and a conference room, and on the lower level there is a parking lot for 35 cars. The buildings are united by a pavilion for the receptionist, built above the railway gallery, and an exploited roof above the lower floors, which forms an open area where guests enter via an overpass from the side of the road.
An outdoor “endless” pool with sea water on the Tsikhisdziri rock is the decoration of the complex. The place for the bowl was suggested by the natural elevation difference on the site. The pool from a height of 24 meters offers a panoramic view of the Adjarian coast from Batumi to Kobuleti. The site on the cliff is divided by the Victoria building into two parts, and the shade of the building makes the stay by the pool pleasant from morning to evening.
The comfort of the guests is enhanced by inclined lifts on both sides of the complex. Inclined elevator designs are different from each other. The route of the inclined elevator to the villa "Aphrodite" is a traditional straight line with a cable drive, 35 m long, the elevator is made in Italy. The second trail leads to the sea beach along the line of the old stairs descending to the breakwater. This is not a straight line, but a trajectory with a length of 89 m that changes the angle of inclination and turn. The route and stops of the elevator were developed by German specialists together with the architect and designer of the hotel project, and the German company produced and installed the actual inclined elevator.
The project is full of non-standard solutions dictated by the complexity of the place. The complex was put into operation on June 27, 2016. The total area of the designed and built hotel complex was about 17,000 m2. For a short time since the opening of the hotel Castello Mare Hotel & Wellness Resort is gaining popularity among tourists of Adjara, and residents of the rest of Georgia come to this hotel complex for wedding ceremonies, conferences or for recreation.
