National Geographic: La Vita Smeralda
July 2008
Morning comes early at the Cala di Volpe. The only sound is that of the water in the mooring lapping against the perfectly kept lawn with its rows of blue sun loungers for the hotel guests. The maintenance staff, wearing white overalls, check the immense sea-water pool, the biggest in Europe. A sailor armed with a brush is polishing the deck of a sleek, dark cabin cruiser.
There are not many people around, but the Costa Smeralda season has just begun, with the "Cala di Volpe" literary prize, this year awarded jointly to Cristina Comencini and Andrej Longo by a jury of genuine readers - about fifty students from the University of Sassari who, on the evening of the presentation, sat excited and a little bewildered at tables where millionaires and celebrities usually dine.
The legend of the Costa Smeralda started in the 1960s, right here in Cala, as its aficionados call it, with the mellow pink, white and orange turret overlooking the cove. The turret was designed by the visionary genius of Jacques Couell, the architect who created it as the first home of the man who invented this place and its legend: His Highness the Prince Aga Khan, as everyone still calls him, in deference.
This hotel without a single right angle, with its twisted stairway of multicoloured steps and its white walls dotted with coloured glass which Couell inserted by hand, leaving the prints of his hands on the gleaming plaster, houses the "Presidential" suite, one of the four most expensive suites on earth, according to the list drawn up by Forbes magazine. It costs 30 thousand euros: 70 square metres covering several floors, three rooms, three bathrooms, hand-painted wardrobes showing scenes of Sardinian life, all of it underneath a solarium with a private pool, circular sofa, external shower, stereo set and breathtaking view over the sheltered cove. Surprisingly, it is almost always occupied - by magnates of industry, film stars, or football players. The hotel's impeccable porters remain tight-lipped, although they let it be known, with subtle Sardinian irony, that they have seen everything there is to see, and more. The frequently quoted lines "Che gente, Ada mia" ("Some people, these, Ada"), come to mind, spoken by Alberto Sordi in Monicelli's 1970 movie "La coppie" (The Couple), when, in the role of factory worker Giacinto Colonna, he tries in vain to find a room to celebrate his tenth wedding anniversary.
In front of the tower that has now become the old part of the hotel, on the purely decorative pier made of dark wood which extends like a thin finger into the cove, stands the villa of Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, GazProm manager and owner of Chelsea football team, underneath a crane (it is currently being renovated). Looking at it, it is almost as if the Costa Smeralda of yesterday and today are squaring up to each other, divided by a narrow stretch of turquoise sea, but perhaps, above all, by their way of looking at the world.
Some say that it all began on the day that the Aga Khan, looking down from his aeroplane, fell in love with this wild, unspoilt stretch of coast. Others say that it all began at a businessman's luncheon party in a London club. Like all self-respecting legends, the origins of the Costa Smeralda are swathed in mystery. What is certain is that as the 1950s turned into the 1960s, when Italy was in the middle of its building boom and expressions like "town planning", "sustainable tourism" and "environmental impact" did not yet exist, the Aga Khan, then little more than 20 years old, imagined a settlement which would, as far as possible, respect the unspoilt nature of the place and its landscapes.
Together with the other international investors who created the Consorzio Costa Smeralda, he bought 3,000 hectares in Gallura and gave precise instructions for building hotels and villas: the materials used were to be exclusively local, it was forbidden to build buildings higher than two stories (the villas had to be "invisible") or to put up advertising posters; pipes and wiring had to be underground and, above all, it was forbidden to import "foreign" plants and trees that did not fit in with the Gallura vegetation. For the time it was a genuine cultural revolution. The prince unleashed his own architects on the island - Couell, Vietti, Busiri Vici, and Mossa - so that they could recreate in the new buildings the style of the original island dwellings. The "neo Sardo" style came into being, used to construct Porto Cervo and its famous Piazzetta (the work of Luigi Vietti, who also claims to have coined the name "Costa Smeralda") and the first site of the "Maison du port" Yacht Club.
Black and white photographs show the young prince holding his plans as he oversees the work, ordering the workers not to bury any system equipment without his having inspected it. A "reinvention" of the geography of the place with a compelling obligation not to betray it. The jet set (as VIPs were called then) didn't take long to arrive: Britain's Princess Margaret, Grace Kelly, the Beatles, Greta Garbo, the Rothschilds, and Marisa Berenson wandered barefoot and happy on the pink granite of the piazzetta. "In those days the prince used to go and greet the few ships that landed at the Piazzetta personally", says Marina Simeone, who opened a pharmacy here in 1967, and still remembers the day when Ringo Starr put his baby son down in the basket where they kept the natural sponges. "It was a magical time. Of course now everyone comes here and the place has changed. But the world has changed too, and it has changed everywhere."
To provide further diversion for stars and aristocrats, the Pevero Golf Club started in 1967. Designed by Robert Trent Jones, it is considered one of the 50 most beautiful golf courses in the world. "It was a real challenge," explains manager Marcus Dickey. "Very little was altered here. To make the grass grow they didn't import earth, but used crumbled granite. The Mediterranean scrub prevails: if you lose a ball, you won't find it again. The problem is getting enough water for watering the grass: we try to use water from the dyke, but unfortunately sometimes we have to buy it."
But the trendiest sport on the coast today seems to be polo rather than golf; it is one of the passions of the present owner of the Costa Smeralda, Thomas Barrack. "Polo and Sardinia are a perfect combination: an ideal climate, great horses, and the perfect combination of glamour and sport." An American of Lebanese origin, considered by Forbes to be "the biggest real estate investor in the world", Barrack joined the consortium after the Aga Khan left it, at the end of the 1990s, after the local government failed to approve his development plan. Barrack also has such a plan, but he declares himself to be optimistic: "It's simply a matter of adapting the hotel structures, which have remained those of forty years ago. If you want to maintain this high standard, you have to modernize the services." And how does he envisage it in the future? "I adore this coast. I arrived here 25 years ago and I fell head over heels in love with it: I saw a nature and a beauty here that I have never seen anywhere else in the world. My dream is to leave it as much as possible as it is now. It is difficult to find such a beautiful place inhabited by such beautiful people. And you need to take care of these people: life isn't easy for young people in Sardinia. The natural beauty is an asset, and it is madness not to take care of it. In Italy, unfortunately, this happens quite often. Instead, in order to not strip off the posidonia from the sea floor, we have created here a mooring-buoy system, for example.
According to Sebastiano Venneri, national sea officer of Italian environmental organization Legambiente, "we must acknowledge the consortium of having giving up to quite a lot of cubic metres, and having adopted instead some environmental actions to contain the touristic activity impact. It seems that we're starting to understand the economic value of an healthy environment." That said, creating a place like Porto Cervo today would be impossible: consuming space, even by great architects, is no longer the only way to develop a territory.
"No starlets, no VIP watching" proclaim the advertisements of some of the hotels in Ogliastra, on the eastern coast of Sardinia: a sign that for many people, the gossip that dominates the east of the Costa Smeralda is no longer the draw that the jet-set was in the 1960s: quite the contrary. Yet there is one corner of this coast that has remained truly exclusive, if for no other reason than the fact that money does not guarantee access to it: the Costa Smeralda Yacht Club.
Since 1977, the Yacht Club (of which the prince is president - the only thing other than his villa Cerbiatta that he wanted to keep) has moved from the small, distinctive Maison du Port, to the austere premises designed by Peter Marino. Shiny dark wood, soft carpets, minimalist furnishings and works from the prince's personal collection lining the white walls: sailing pictures, maps and models of ancient boats. To be admitted to the club and the 24 guest suites you need to be introduced by two members and to obtain approval from the other 500. These include royalty, such as King Juan Carlos, and great entrepreneurs such as Barrack himself. Considering the contest, the annual subscription is a trifling sum: 2000 euros. Photographers are off-limits. "The club members want to keep their privacy and we protect it," explains sports director, Captain Edoardo Recchi, who manages the regatta calendar - starting in May with "Sailing and golf", and ending in September - which has made this Yacht Club one of the most important in the world.
Perhaps only the logistical difficulties connected to the territory have prevented the America Cup from being held on the Costa Smeralda rather than in Valencia; after all, the Italian hopes start here. But there have been rumours for a while that the prince is looking elsewhere, to export his model to other parts of the world. "It's true," confirms the secretary general, Ian Pachner: "At the moment it's only a plan which we're sounding out among the members, over a third of whom come from abroad. It definitely won't be in Italy. It could be in the Pacific or the Caribbean. The prince is a man of great vision." Pachner denies that this has come about because of what the place has become now, or that the new plan means abandoning the Costa Smeralda. If that were so, it would mean that the dream which began in the Sixties has truly come to an end.
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