Peter Marino, who chairs the Venetian Heritage Foundation, has spent a multi-phase renovation deliberately not reinventing the place: Murano glass and antique furniture, dolce vita glamour, a double-height lobby that runs straight out into the fountain garden, thirteen redesigned suites. The gardens are the real trick — rose arches, hydrangeas, pomegranate trees, and, per the hotel, one rabbit, three ducks and some chickens. A country estate, ten minutes across the water from San Marco.