Italian iconic hotel luxury il San Pietro di Potitano celebrates 55 years

Don’t walk through Posisano with Carlo Cinque if you are in a hurry.

Everyone a few legs, store holders and hoteliers stop him from chatting. Some are his friends, some are his relatives, everyone suggests close ties that connect Carlo’s family – and his preserved hotel, Il San Pietro di Positano – with this idyllic city Amalfi Coast.

Just a few weeks shy of its 55^Th Birthday on June 29, Il San Pietro, perhaps the best place to restore a thin aaron photo, to embrace the fantasy of living Italian life in the most stylish.

“We are always available to our guests. For us, it is a pleasure to assure everything they need to enjoy their attitude,” says Cinque, 60. Named for his late uncle, the founder of luxury iconic property, Cinque co-Zothes the hotel with his brother, Vito. daily during walks.

Carved on a rock promontory, the hotel remains an essential stop on the amalfi coast. Visitors stroll through the terrace, fragrant jasmine and rosemary and abundant with citrus fruits, tomatoes, salad greens, herbs and eggplants. They can get a quick elevator up to overlapping vermilion chases slightly arranged over the crystalline ocean, and swim or sail on one of two hotel -made yachts. Exercise options include pilates on the beach, yoga and tennis; Viewing from all is an outdoor gym located under an abundant lemon arbor and a pool that reflects the Azure sky. Among many delicious lunch options: Linguine house studied with local lobster and organic tomatoes grown in the country.

The Cinque family looks like so visible arbitrators of the luxury journey now, but their road was initially seen as nonsense. In 1934, 23 -year -old Carlino Cinque persuaded his suspicious father to help him buy land that had been abandoned by locals who emigrated to the United States and Argentina. At that time, Positano was a quiet fishing village.

“Everyone said Uncle Carlino was crazy. Why would you start a hotel in a city without tourism?” Says Cinque.

An autodidact who completed only the third grade, Carlino Cinque opened the Miramare Hotel in 1934, fueling the Northern Europeans who winter in Positano. During World War II, Miramaare housed British generals. After the war, many of them returned, creating a market for Anglo visitors.

Cinque aspired for greater elegance and began buying land two kilometers from the city center, on a rock overlooking Salerno’s bay.

Impatient of the harsh conditions, Cinque predicted a luxurious resort, a sophisticated departure he opened in 1970. In the years of intervention, his family added a stars restaurant, a coastal tennis court and a boutique with smoother cafans, built with hand -loaded lines.

“Uncle Carlino did all this without an architect. He had the vision of an artist, and he really respected the natural environment. When he built something, he would go out in the boat and look at the water. If he offended the landscape, he would bring him down and rebuild,” Carlo Cinque says. “It is a full reverse approach of what someone else would do to build a new hotel.”

Carlino’s dreamy nature, says his great nephew, found perfect noodles in his nephew Salvatore and his niece Virginia, both had more pragmatic approaches.

Natural hosts and wise traders, they excelled in the welcome of the list A like Franco Zefferelli, Brooke Shields, Julia Roberts and Dustin Hoffman, who were so in love with vegetable gardens as he received to harvest his products, and joining the culinary staff for their food. Cinques also gave the city again, creating the annual Sun, Sea and Positano Culture Festival in 1992.

Still, they are sometimes caught being the city being a victim of its success. Positano, with less than 4,000 inhabitants, fights with mass tourism by placing so many other stunning Italian cities. A single road connects the city with the rest of the Amalfi coast, by large buses that sometimes cause great delays for drivers, and visitors blocking picturesque but narrow roads.

Visitors to Il San Pietro can simply take 5-minute boat from the hotel beach to Positano port, avoiding road traffic and some choose not to leave at all. With only 55 rooms and suites and 200 staff, the resort feels like a private club and has a 50 percent return rate.

The ambitious, cinques hosts are not resting on their significant laurels: in the past year, they have added Palazzo Santa Croce, a five -bedroom Baroque palace restored with five bedrooms, and Sunrise with two -bedrooms Sunrise. They are also planning an indoor pool and an extended bathroom in Il San Pietro.

All the time, the ethics of the family is central, even unstable in an era when so many luxury properties are part of the great international conglomerates. Cinques reportedly rejected the repeated offers by Bernard Arnault, a frequent guest.

It is difficult to imagine that they will ever give up their beloved hotel, so deeply intertwined in their identity, or that they would stop being perfectionist.

“When we close for the season, we always work to improve the hotel. We tell our long -term customers that we will renovate their rooms, and they say,” No, for the sake of paradise, don’t touch my room, it’s so beautiful, “says Cinque.”