Stresa seems to come up fairly often on itineraries these days, although with the track work between Arona and Stresa during summer maybe less so than usual. We would like to spend a night there in September (after the track work is finished) and I was discouraged looking at hotels—-so many of the recommended hotels are “classic” upscale hotels with ornate lobbies, and carpeted rooms with brocade draperies, plush furniture in dark colors, and bathtubs. We much prefer bright modern rooms with wood floors, light or bright colors, and walk-in showers.
After numerous searches using Google satellite view, I came up with 2 I had not seen mentioned at all; both fit our criteria and are adjacent to one another on the lakefront street across from the promenade, very close to the ferry dock.
Boutique Hotel Sempione is a 3-star newly renovated hotel offering (small) modern lakeview rooms with balconies, and a shared rooftop terrace (always an attraction for me). It may have escaped notice by Rick et al. because of all the bad reviews on Tripadvisor. But those are all dated 2019—pre renovation. The hotel now gets a “fabulous” rating of 9.7 on booking.com by people who have stayed there in 2022 and 2023.
https://www.sempioneboutiquehotel.it/en/
Next door is Il Bar Gigi, a little bakery, bar and bistro which offers modern rooms, suites and apartments upstairs—-I think 6 total, each different, but all with lakeview. So new there are no reviews on booking.com, but I will not that lack against them in this case.
I haven’t decided which to choose yet.