Costa Smeralda and its myth

Telling the birth of the Costa Smeralda now lives between legends and history of a development initiative that has changed Sardinia, from its foundation in 1962 to the present day. The origins of the tourist myth are remembered, the fable of Prince Aga Khan hopelessly in love with this wild and inaccessible land (79), the development of the project (122) and the conquest of international fame, earned also thanks to the migration to the new tourist destination of showbiz personalities and world capitalism.

Half a century later, that myth survives and remains a pillar of the Sardinian economy and an irreplaceable reference for those who, in choosing the destination for the holidays, stand out for good taste and love for a nature with unique colors and shapes. A sign that that much-discussed and often criticized model had its own coherence and was inspired by principles that still remain valid today.

White sand beaches, coves as deep as wedges inserted in the heart of the earth, crystalline seabed, granite with pink reflections worked by the millennial hand of nature, panoramas embroidered by the yellow of the broom and scented with juniper. The Costa Smeralda owes its fame to this unique landscape heritage. And just because it is unique, this generous nature has attracted celebrities from all over the world since the early years: big names in the jet set, sports, finance, politics and industry have been and are at home in Porto Cervo and have contributed in a decisive way to creating the fame of a vacation spot on which the whole world, in the summer, focuses the spotlight. Greta Garbo, Margaret of England, Gianni Agnelli, Jacqueline Kennedy, Juan Carlos, Harrison Ford and Sting are just some of the regular visitors to the resort and among the animators of social life, of which Prince Karim Aga Khan himself was one of the protagonists.

If personalities of this rank have made this corner of Sardinia a second home, it is also because their need for confidentiality and privacy is understood and supported. A necessity married by the local community, whose discretion represents the first bulwark to defend the most noble guests from morbid curiosities.

The literature on the history of the Costa Smeralda tells episodes of this unbridled race for fun, for the obsessive search for moments of happiness and enjoyment also passed through glitzes that can appear legendary, if they were not true. This continuous succession of parties, events and extravagances has always been a fundamental aspect of the history of the Costa Smeralda. (202, 263) Starting from Pedros, the first night born in an old stazzo of Liscia di Vacca and linked to the name of its founder. Here is what the journalist Alberto Pinna wrote in Corriere della Sera, in an article published on August 9, 1997 which reports an interview with a connoisseur of that environment such as Mabi Satta: The secret of the Costa Smeralda, a mix between privacy and exhibitionism, class and scapigliatura, etiquette and extravagance. The myth was built by Karim but also by characters such as Peter Kent, Pedros, a gypsy friend of Amin, brother of the Aga Khan. Pedros had opened the first night club on the coast, transgressions and madness until dawn. “Aga Khan personally selected the invitations to the official ceremonies – says Mabi Satta -: one day I saw him exude: in the front row, alongside elegant and upright ladies, Pedros had sprung up, with a silver fox on his shoulder, pink pigtail, uncovered navel trousers, ankle boots and cowboy hat. A moment of panic, a smile, all right. Not even Pedros was out of tune. Few lucky people still remember the pharaonic, exaggerated party given by Count Cesare d’Acquarone in 1967, on a yacht anchored in the waters of Poltu Cuatu.

In the documentary “Da lu monti a lu monti", produced by the Master video in 2004, the then concierge of the hotel Pitrizza Antonello Martini tells with abundance of details that reception attended by hundreds of guests arrived from all over the world, so much so that the hotel itself was rented by the Count to host the defendants. A few hundred meters from Poltu Cuatu, in that of Baja Sardinia, on August 6, 1976 Greek shipowner Stevros Niarchos wanted to gather his friends from all corners of the world at Ritual, the night club carved out of the rock created by the imaginative architect Andres Fiore. It was one of the most sumptuous and crazy nights that the Costa Smeralda remembers. (219) Other theaters of nocturnal madness, over the years, have been S’Inferru, in the subway of Porto Cervo, to continue with Pepero, Sottovento and Sopravento and conclude with Billionaire, the creature of manager Flavio Briatore who monopolized the last decade of worldly news.

Until fifty years ago the few families that populate the countryside of the Monti di Mola distrusted the fields closest to the sea, malarial and unproductive. Nobody wanted them and they often ended up in inheritance like the less valuable pieces of family heritage. Those coasts then repudiated, today are the heart of the Costa Smeralda. This apparent paradox would be enough to explain how deeply known it is engraved on the history of the places that were the protagonists of the birth and development of one of the most famous tourist areas in the world. The formal act that marks the birth of the Costa Smeralda Consortium is dated March 14, 1962. Karim Aga Khan, Patrick Guinness, Felix Bigio, Andrè Ardoin, John Duncan Miller and Renè Podbielski met in front of the notary Mario Altea of ​​Tempio Pausania to sign the statute, in the building of Corso Umberto in Olbia which was one of the first seats of the new partnership. The notary’s table was cluttered with papers, the deeds of sale of the 1800 hectares of land purchased by the promoters of the Consortium in the area between Liscia di Vacca and Razza di Juncu, between the Municipalities of Arzachena and Olbia. The signing of the statute was preceded by the signing of a letter of intent, in September 1961, and by a long planning and diplomacy work to make that unexpected tourist revolution possible. A long job started, quite casually, in 1958. The English banker John Duncan Miller, vice-president of the World Bank, was visiting Sardinia to personally verify the progress of the eradication campaign for the Anopheles, the malaria transmission agent .

The sailing of the British magnate’s yacht to the coast of the island stopped at Cala di Volpe, where the boat stops at anchor. Miller was enchanted by the crystal clear waters of the bay and was convinced of the tourist potential of that corner of Gallura. Two witnesses of that first approach, then teenagers, are still among us. They are called Giovan Michele Linaldeddu and Giovanni Azara and, on the same day when the yacht reached Cala di Volpe, they bathed in those waters. They were invited to come on board and Miller, through an interpreter, asked for information about the owners of the land and the possibility that they agreed to sell it. The story of this singular interview is documented in the film “Da Lu Monti a lu Monti", which tells the story of the birth and development of the Costa Smeralda between the late 1950s and the events of the new millennium. It was Miller who told Karim Aga Khan IV the wonders of that corner of Sardinia. Karim (42) had just become Imam of the Ishmaelite Muslims and, as a descendant of Muhammad, was and is considered a divinity on earth by those who profess that religious confession

The Aga Khan got involved in the venture and invested $ 25,000 in the union paid among the entrepreneurs who then founded the Consortium. But the prince concluded that he had made a bad deal when, in the winter of 1958, a board of a Tirrenia ferry arrived in Olbia and had to travel for four hours along impassable mule tracks to get to the properties purchased in a closed box. The future tourist area was a place without infrastructure: there were no roads, electricity, water networks and any other services. (359) And then the bad season and the rainy day make the Monti di Mola wilder and more impregnable than ever and the prevailing of the gray winters took away even the most suggestive glimpses of the coastal countries that at the beginning were present in the states listed as enchanting. Providential because history takes its course was an improvised cruise, in the summer of 1959.

The Aga Khan and some friends got on a yacht and from the French Riviera, where he is on vacation, they pointed the bow towards Sardinia. Karim wanted to show his fellow travelers the properties he had hastily dismissed as a failed deal. The crystalline colors of the water, the whiteness of immaculate beaches and the granites modeled by nature like plastic sculptures left the Imam speechless. At the suggestion of the architect Luigi Vietti the Aga Khan thought that that corner of the island had been called Costa Smeralda, drawing inspiration from the chromatic magic of a transparent sea carefully insinuated into a thousand inlets. The tourist future of Monti di Mola was outlined at that time.

Until then the illustrious known user that the area had known was the industrialist Giuseppe Kerry Mentasti.

In 1953 Mentasti purchased the 43 hectares of Mortorio Island for 3.5 million lire, sold to the owner of San Pellegrino by the tobacconist of Arzachena Luigino Demuro.

But Mentasti considered Mortorio only a summer retreat and did not cultivate entrepreneurial ambitions. Also because, as already mentioned, the area was really without even the most basic forms of urbanization and lacked water networks. Just the lack of water in the area was one of the workhorses of a politician from Arzachena, Giovanni Filigheddu: in the fifties, as regional councilor, Filigheddu lavished all energy and moved all the knowledge possible to urge the birth of the Liscia dam, basin essential for watering the drought low Gallura. A dream that became reality only a few years later and was decisive because the wild Monti di Mola could be transformed into a hospitable and luxurious tourist destination.