How the Emerald Coast® was born

A myth that made entire generations fall in love

‘I arrived in Porto Cervo with four or five friends, on a 12-metre boat. There was nothing. It was the first time I saw the Costa Smeralda during the summer. I wanted to see a small piece of land I had bought,' a very young Ishmaelite prince Karim Aga Khan recounted in one of his first Italian interviews. And this tale that smacks of a fairy tale has accompanied and still accompanies this beautiful area.

We are in the late 1950s. Inside the financial circles of London, to which the prince belonged, an important English financier, John Duncan Miller is talking about this corner of paradise on earth, in wild Gallura, on the island of Sardinia. Its colours, its sea and its nature had enraptured the wealthy British businessman, who had reported his trip to Sardinian soil with such emphasis that even the Aga Khan, who had bought land here without even having seen it, had been bewitched. From that story and from the first plot of land, was born 61 years ago what is still today one of the most famous and renowned destinations of international elite tourism.

Spiaggia del Principe

Fifty-five kilometres of coastline in the north-east of Sardinia, belonging to the municipality of Arzachena, have become one of the world's best-known tourist destinations. The first official act dates back to September 1961, when the Aga Khan and the patron of San Pellegrino, Giuseppe Mentasti with the other partners, signed a letter of intent, written entirely by hand, setting out the rules of conduct they had given themselves. The official birth, however, with the signing in front of notary Mario Altea at number 193 Corso Umberto in Olbia, took place on 14 March 1962: six founding partners, in addition to the Aga Khan and Miller himself, Patrick Guinnes, Felix Bigio, André Ardoin and René Podbielski, gave birth to the Consorzio Costa Smeralda.

A non-profit organisation, the Consortium was established with the aim of controlling and governing the urban, territorial and architectural development of the destination and to counter building speculation. A prestigious Architectural Committee was also set up, charged with drawing up the rigorous development plans and ensuring constant architectural control of the area, to ensure the preservation of the existing natural heritage and to conceive a style capable of combining natural beauty with elements of the local building tradition. It was Prince Aga Khan himself who called some of the best architects of the time to the Committee: Luigi Vietti, Jacques Couëlle, Michele Busiri Vici and Antonio Simon Mossa. Four masters of architecture who had the merit of conceiving a style that was profoundly characteristic and set in a unique and wild landscape. If, until then, the land on which the Costa Smeralda® stands was considered unsuitable for grazing and close to the sea, and was bequeathed by the family to their daughters because it was unproductive, it is now beginning to take on an increasingly higher value.

Piazzetta di Porto Cervo

The first luxury hotels were built here, first and foremost the Hotel Cala di Volpe, considered one of the most beautiful hotels in the world, the fruit of Jacques Couëlle's flair and pencil; work began on the construction of roads and infrastructures, the quays of the port, the construction of a boatyard for boat storage, the medical centre, the golf course and the famous Stella Maris Church. In an inlet sheltered from the winds, it was then decided to build what over time became the historic centre of Porto Cervo, the beating heart of the Costa Smeralda, imagined and designed by architect Luigi Vietti and inaugurated in 1964.