History

Once upon a time...

The Hotel Punta San Martino was built on the foundations of a military bunker, in a spectacular natural scenery.
The headland in the background was an important military target during the Second World War,
so Queen Marie José provided a battery of two 15-inch (381-mm) guns (whose remains are still visible) to defend this crucial site.
In 1956 architect Marco Zanuso was commissioned to build the hotel.
Later, during the 1990s, the structure was expanded and became what we see today.

The hotel opened in the summer of 1956 with a special episode
of the then highly popular TV quiz game ‘Campanile Sera’, hosted by Mike Bongiorno.
The sophisticated Calypso disco inside the hotel attracted the high society of the time,
among them the current Japanese emperor, Farouk of Egypt, and artists such as film director and actor Vittorio De Sica,
play director Giorgio Strehler, singers Mina, Gino Paoli, Ornella Vanoni,
Paul Anka, Enzo Jannacci, and the Platters, as well as film star Anita Ekberg.