The Portofino Kulm Hotel is built in full Belle Époque style at the beginning of the 1900s based on the idea of an engineer whose family, originally from the Swiss Canton Ticino region, enlist among its representatives, illustrious sculptors whose works are also in the Cathedral and the Carlo Felice theatre in Genoa.

Work of the Portofino Kulm Hotel starts in 1903 and engineer Sebastiano Gaggini, a frequent visitor of the Riviera di Levante (eastern Riviera) wants to realize a hotel on top of the mount just behind the village of Camogli, a Hotel that competes with the prestigious Rihi Kulm on the lake of the Four Cantons in Switzerland.
Two years later, a chalet is already set on top of the mount in which is possible to watch a brief cinematographic representation an listen to opera thanks to mechanical phonograph.
Also, without forgetting that outside the chalet, thanks to three powerful spyglasses it is even possible to follow the fishermen's activity on the boats in the sea.

In 1906, a delegation of foreign journalists is enthusiastic about the realization of such a new structure echoing the succes of the new site abroad.