Meet Rocco and Lizzy
From punk stages to perfectly styled stays, Rocco and Lizzy bring 20+ years of hands-on passion to three unique escapes — from Yorkshire’s coast to sunny Alicante.
What started with a love of design, renovation and creating memorable spaces gradually became Rocco’s Retreats.
Our story has never been about buying properties and giving them a quick refresh. We completely strip things back and start again, carefully rebuilding while keeping as much soul and character as possible.
Mi Casa, Alicante was built in 1969 and, incredibly, had never even had hot water installed. It was packed with original features and from the start we knew we wanted to preserve as many of them as we could, especially the beautiful shutters and original tiles. The tiles became the inspiration for the whole property: black, mustard and pink, a colour palette that now flows throughout the space.
All of the artwork was designed by Lizzy specifically for the property, creating a space that feels connected and unique.
Even installing hot water meant painstakingly lifting the original tiles one by one so new pipework could be laid underneath before carefully putting them all back exactly where they belonged.
Alongside that came made-to-measure furniture and high-end kitchens and bathrooms to bring modern comfort into a home that still respects its history.
Centro Castillo, Alicante had a different story but needed the same level of care and attention. This large, elegant home had belonged to one family since it was built in 1965 and had somehow escaped the fate of so many city-centre properties around it. While neighbouring buildings were demolished or converted into apartment blocks, Centro Castillo still stands proudly as a proper home with large rooms, high ceilings and real character. Bringing it back to life meant taking walls back to brickwork, completely rewiring the property and carefully embedding new air-conditioning systems into the walls. During every stage, chandeliers were wrapped, original Moroccan tiling was protected and every effort was made to preserve the details that made the house special. We also created an additional bathroom, transforming it into a spacious three-bedroom, two-bathroom home that combines grand original features with all the comfort of modern living.
The Courtyard in Scarborough was the start of a huge journey for us. We bought the building back in 2008 when it was a former hotel that had sadly become completely derelict. It turned out to be our biggest and most ambitious refurbishment project of them all. The work took a full year, with a team of six working on it full-time, transforming a building that had been neglected into somewhere people could once again enjoy and love staying in. The scale of the project was huge, from The Courtyard’s sitting room right up to the fourth-floor apartment there were literally no floors in place, which at least had one advantage: it made bringing in the large steel supports much easier!
Behind the scenes there was an enormous amount of work required to bring the building up to modern standards, particularly to meet England’s demanding insulation requirements. At the same time, we also had to carefully respect the building’s history and character, as the front façade sits within a conservation area. Balancing modern performance with preserving the original appearance became a huge part of the project. It was a challenge, but we’ve always believed the best buildings are the ones where character and comfort work together rather than one replacing the other.