Where was Hotel Costiera filmed? Amalfi Coast locations revealed
From jaw-dropping ocean views to a rich Italian history, Positano positively radiates movie-star glamour
Sarah Turner - 16 September 2025
Image: Amazon MGM Studios
Complicated past lives and crime dramas are a winning combination; Hotel Costiera, streaming on Amazon Prime, is no exception. US actor Jesse Williams plays Daniel De Luca, an ex-marine with a mysterious past who has rocked up in Italy to work for silver-haired Augusto (Italian star Tommaso Ragno), the equally enigmatic owner of a luxurious hotel.
With his blue eyes, rippled muscles and detailed body art, Williams is clearly the star of the series, which is set on Italy’s beautiful Amalfi Coast. But he is in serious danger of being upstaged by Treville Positano, the exclusive seaside boutique hotel where many scenes were shot.
Those vine-decked terraces and balconies that Williams, best known for Grey’s Anatomy, cogitates thoughtfully from? The jetty that he jumps into powerful speedboats from? The luxurious suites awash with antiques and floaty linen curtains that waft on cue from the sea breezes? All available – although the opulence comes with a serious price tag – by staying at a hotel that’s so discreet that it declined the opportunity to let Rob Rinder and Monica Galetti behind the scenes in Amazing Hotels: Life beyond the Lobby.
Treville Positano is built into the cliffs just outside the town of Positano, which has been the focus of attention since the Roman Empire and gets plenty of action in this new thriller. A buttery yellow cathedral with an extravagantly tiled dome roof takes centre stage, with terraces of houses clinging to the hills while boats are moored prettily offshore, with waves tickling their sides.
It’s not hard to get to Positano. There are regular buses that hug the coastline between Naples and Sorrento, both of which have railway stations. Between April and October, it’s even nicer to get the ferry from Sorrento, which takes about an hour and costs under 20 euros. When you arrive, there’s lemon-accented everything to buy – including ceramics, clothing and comestibles – in a hundred and one shops that are on every stepped pathway.
The hotel, a series of 16 rooms and suites, began life as an 18th-century mansion and is surrounded by steeply terraced gardens. Every wall seems studded with jasmine, while the Aleppo pine trees appear to have been designed to pose in the most picturesque way possible. The rugged little bathing platform built into the rocks is enhanced with bright blue sun loungers and parasols. The sunsets here are deeply theatrical, too; technicolor, widescreen, atmospheric love affairs between sea and sky.
And this hotel also has quite the back story. It was the private estate of director Franco Zeffirelli, and over a period of 30 years from the 1970s onwards, he used his favourite opera and film set designers to transform it into a home that matches the town of Positano for sheer, highly vertiginous theatricality.
Guests at his residence included some of the late 20th century’s biggest stars, such as Maria Callas, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
In 2010, after the director sold it at the age of 90, Treville became a hotel but Zeffirelli allowed the new owners to keep most of his furniture and belongings, including silver-framed photo[1]graphs of frequent guests Rudolf Nureyev and Liza Minnelli, in situ. Treville’s spa is housed in a Victorian conservatory that was once part of Zeffirelli’s 1984 production of La Traviata.
Casa Bernstein, named after American composer Leonard Bernstein, who also stayed there regularly, is now one of the most sought-after suites. It features a vast circular shower, in what was once a bread oven, and its own goldfish pond. Bernstein wrote the score for Brother Sun, Sister Moon here. But all the rooms have a dreamy vista , beautiful at any time of day, particularly heart-stopping as the sun sets.
Naturally, A-listers still seek out Treville. Last year, Madonna marked her 66th birthday with a stay in Casa Zeffirelli, the four-bedroom villa that the director kept for his own use. In a hotel that doesn’t have a bad angle or outlook, Zeffirelli – who passed away in 2019 – kept the best view for himself: a perfectly curated snapshot of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
It still has the director’s original furniture, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and also a bath made from Carrara marble. Jennifer Lopez also notched up a stay here. This year, it was the turn of Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Maestro’s, Treville’s restaurant, is in the same spot where Zeffirelli fed his guests. It serves resolutely Italian food: creamy burrata with tomatoes from the vines around the hotel, squid caught just offshore and zingy granita, all rounded off with limoncello made from fruits gathered from Treville’s own lemon trees, which is best enjoyed under a vine-covered pergola.
Rates are sky-high, but so are the toys. Guests can be collected from Naples from the hotel’s own speedboat or take trips from its private yacht. Treville’s sleek wooden speedboats regularly visit Positano’s harbour to go shopping in the boutiques, sip limoncello around the square and gaze at the crinkle[1]cut coastline. If the best crime dramas have complicated back stories, it’s always an added bonus when the settings are so extraordinarily beautiful.
Image: Amazon MGM Studios
Complicated past lives and crime dramas are a winning combination; Hotel Costiera, streaming on Amazon Prime, is no exception. US actor Jesse Williams plays Daniel De Luca, an ex-marine with a mysterious past who has rocked up in Italy to work for silver-haired Augusto (Italian star Tommaso Ragno), the equally enigmatic owner of a luxurious hotel.
With his blue eyes, rippled muscles and detailed body art, Williams is clearly the star of the series, which is set on Italy’s beautiful Amalfi Coast. But he is in serious danger of being upstaged by Treville Positano, the exclusive seaside boutique hotel where many scenes were shot.
Those vine-decked terraces and balconies that Williams, best known for Grey’s Anatomy, cogitates thoughtfully from? The jetty that he jumps into powerful speedboats from? The luxurious suites awash with antiques and floaty linen curtains that waft on cue from the sea breezes? All available – although the opulence comes with a serious price tag – by staying at a hotel that’s so discreet that it declined the opportunity to let Rob Rinder and Monica Galetti behind the scenes in Amazing Hotels: Life beyond the Lobby.
Treville Positano is built into the cliffs just outside the town of Positano, which has been the focus of attention since the Roman Empire and gets plenty of action in this new thriller. A buttery yellow cathedral with an extravagantly tiled dome roof takes centre stage, with terraces of houses clinging to the hills while boats are moored prettily offshore, with waves tickling their sides.
It’s not hard to get to Positano. There are regular buses that hug the coastline between Naples and Sorrento, both of which have railway stations. Between April and October, it’s even nicer to get the ferry from Sorrento, which takes about an hour and costs under 20 euros. When you arrive, there’s lemon-accented everything to buy – including ceramics, clothing and comestibles – in a hundred and one shops that are on every stepped pathway.
The hotel, a series of 16 rooms and suites, began life as an 18th-century mansion and is surrounded by steeply terraced gardens. Every wall seems studded with jasmine, while the Aleppo pine trees appear to have been designed to pose in the most picturesque way possible. The rugged little bathing platform built into the rocks is enhanced with bright blue sun loungers and parasols. The sunsets here are deeply theatrical, too; technicolor, widescreen, atmospheric love affairs between sea and sky.
And this hotel also has quite the back story. It was the private estate of director Franco Zeffirelli, and over a period of 30 years from the 1970s onwards, he used his favourite opera and film set designers to transform it into a home that matches the town of Positano for sheer, highly vertiginous theatricality.
Guests at his residence included some of the late 20th century’s biggest stars, such as Maria Callas, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
In 2010, after the director sold it at the age of 90, Treville became a hotel but Zeffirelli allowed the new owners to keep most of his furniture and belongings, including silver-framed photo[1]graphs of frequent guests Rudolf Nureyev and Liza Minnelli, in situ. Treville’s spa is housed in a Victorian conservatory that was once part of Zeffirelli’s 1984 production of La Traviata.
Casa Bernstein, named after American composer Leonard Bernstein, who also stayed there regularly, is now one of the most sought-after suites. It features a vast circular shower, in what was once a bread oven, and its own goldfish pond. Bernstein wrote the score for Brother Sun, Sister Moon here. But all the rooms have a dreamy vista , beautiful at any time of day, particularly heart-stopping as the sun sets.
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Naturally, A-listers still seek out Treville. Last year, Madonna marked her 66th birthday with a stay in Casa Zeffirelli, the four-bedroom villa that the director kept for his own use. In a hotel that doesn’t have a bad angle or outlook, Zeffirelli – who passed away in 2019 – kept the best view for himself: a perfectly curated snapshot of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
It still has the director’s original furniture, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and also a bath made from Carrara marble. Jennifer Lopez also notched up a stay here. This year, it was the turn of Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Maestro’s, Treville’s restaurant, is in the same spot where Zeffirelli fed his guests. It serves resolutely Italian food: creamy burrata with tomatoes from the vines around the hotel, squid caught just offshore and zingy granita, all rounded off with limoncello made from fruits gathered from Treville’s own lemon trees, which is best enjoyed under a vine-covered pergola.
Rates are sky-high, but so are the toys. Guests can be collected from Naples from the hotel’s own speedboat or take trips from its private yacht. Treville’s sleek wooden speedboats regularly visit Positano’s harbour to go shopping in the boutiques, sip limoncello around the square and gaze at the crinkle[1]cut coastline. If the best crime dramas have complicated back stories, it’s always an added bonus when the settings are so extraordinarily beautiful.
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