The sleeping area

The Alcove of the Stars

The sleeping area at Cherì Navona

An ordinary bedroom invites you to look out. This one invites you to look up.

Go down the stairs. Rome stays above you.

Look up: the Cherì sky is waiting for you.

The alcove vault with the light off: the fibre-optic installation

Ursa Major. Ursa Minor.

This time, the sky is indoors.

How you see it from the bed

This is the alcove vault, photographed from below with the light off: the same point of view as someone lying down. Move your finger, or the mouse, and the sky shifts a little — the way it does when you turn your head on the pillow.

A real photograph of the installation. Only the light and the framing have been worked on: no star has been added, removed or moved. The lines of the two constellations are an overlay, to show you where to look.

An ordinary bedroom invites you to look out. This one invites you to look up.

What an alcove is

An alcove is a recess built into the wall and made for the bed: a more sheltered space, set apart from the rest of the room, often under a vault. It is not a small room. It is a room built around the bed, where everything — the height, the light, the quiet — is tuned to one thing: sleeping well. For centuries that is exactly what an alcove has been: the place where sleep is protected. At Cherì Navona the sleeping area is a real alcove, not a turn of phrase.

How you get there

You go down the internal staircase to the lower floor, entirely covered by masonry vaults: no flat ceiling anywhere. First comes the living area, with the sofa bed and, right above it, the lightwell window looking onto street level. Then a short corridor, vaulted too. And at the end, set apart, the alcove. It is only a few steps: the house is compact, and every room is close to the next. Yet they are enough to keep the alcove apart, away from the door and the street.

The living area on the lower floor: the sofa bed beneath the lightwell window

The same room in the evening: the sofa bed ready for the night

Here the sky is not seen from a window

It is seen from the bed. Above you the masonry curves into a vault, and through the vault runs the fibre optic that draws Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. A switch on the wall, the light going down, your eyes going up: Rome stays upstairs, and above you the other one comes on. The stars are not all alike: some are sharp and bright, others barely there, as in a real sky. The light is RGB and changes colour.

It goes on and off from a wall switch, in the room. No app to download: you reach out and the sky is there.

What to know before booking

The alcove is an internal space on the lower floor, under a masonry vault, and it has no windows. The living area on the same floor has a lightwell window at street level, above the sofa bed. The home is air-conditioned and an air purification system runs at all times.

The sky above the bed is a fibre-optic installation with RGB light: it reproduces Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, changes colour, and goes on and off from a wall switch. It is not a window and it brings no daylight.

Because of this layout, Cherì Navona is not suitable for anyone who wants a bedroom with an outside view or who suffers from claustrophobia. We would rather explain the architecture of the house to you now, precisely: knowing exactly where you will sleep is the first way we have of looking after your stay.

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