Don’t walk through Positano with Carlo Cinque if you’re in a rush.
Every few feet, shop keepers and hoteliers stop him to chat. Some are his friends, some are his relatives, all of them suggest the tight ties that bind Carlo’s family — and its storied hotel, Il San Pietro di Positano — to this idyllic Amalfi Coast town.
Just a few weeks shy of its 55th birthday on June 29, Il San Pietro remains possibly the best place to reenact a Slim Aarons photograph, to embrace the fantasy of living Italian life at its most stylish.
“We are always at our guests’ disposal. For us, it’s a pleasure to provide everything they need to enjoy their stay,” says Cinque, 60. Named for his late great uncle, founder of the iconic luxury property, Cinque co-owns the hotel with his brother, Vito, 57. Their mother Virginia, 90, still lives on property, greeting guests during her daily garden walks.
Carved into a rocky promontory, the hotel remains an essential stop on the Amalfi Coast. Guests stroll through terraced gardens, fragrant with jasmine and rosemary and abundant with citrus fruit, tomatoes, salad greens, herbs and eggplants. They can take a speedy elevator down to the vermillion-upholstered chaises longues arranged just over the crystalline ocean, and swim or sail in one of the hotel’s two custom-built yachts. Exercise options include beachside Pilates, yoga and tennis; overlooking it all is an outdoor gym nestled under a copious lemon arbor and a pool reflecting the azure sky. Among the many delicious lunch options: homemade linguine studded with local lobster and the organic tomatoes grown onsite.
The Cinque family seems like such obvious arbiters of luxury travel now, but their path was initially seen as a folly. In 1934, 23 year-old Carlino Cinque convinced his dubious father to help him buy land that had been abandoned by locals emigrating to the United States and Argentina. At the time, Positano was a quiet fishing village.
“Everyone said Uncle Carlino was crazy. Why would you start a hotel in a town with no tourism?,” Cinque says.
An autodidact who only completed third grade, Carlino Cinque opened the Hotel Miramare in 1934, catering to the fortunate Northern Europeans who wintered in Positano. During World War II, the Miramare housed British generals. Post-war, many of them returned, creating a market for Anglo visitors.
Cinque aspired to greater elegance, and began buying land two kilometers from the town center, on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of Salerno.
Undeterred by the austere conditions, Cinque envisioned a luxurious resort, a sophisticated getaway that he opened in 1970. In the intervening years, his family added a Michelin-starred restaurant, a seaside tennis court, and a boutique with the silkiest caftans and expertly constructed, hand lined tote bags.
“Uncle Carlino did all of this without an architect. He had an artist’s vision, and he really respected the natural environment. When he built something, he’d go out on the boat and look at it from the water. If it offended the landscape, he would tear it down and rebuild,” Carlo Cinque says. “It’s the complete opposite approach of what anyone else would do to build a new hotel.”
Carlino’s dreamy nature, his great nephew says, found the perfect foil in his nephew Salvatore and his niece Virginia, both of whom had more pragmatic approaches.
Natural hosts and savvy marketers, they excelled in welcoming a-listers like Franco Zefferelli, Brooke Shields, Julia Roberts and Dustin Hoffman, who was so enamored of the vegetable gardens that he took to harvesting his own produce, and joining the kitchen staff for their meals. The Cinques also gave back to the town, creating Positano’s annual Sun, Sea and Culture festival in 1992.
Still, they sometimes grapple with being the town being a victim of its success. Positano, with fewer than 4,000 residents, struggles with the mass tourism plaguing so many other stunning Italian towns. A single road connects the town to the rest of the Amalfi coast, with large busses sometimes causing huge delays for motorists, and visitors clogging the picturesque but narrow streets.
Guests at Il San Pietro can simply take the 5-minute boat shuttle from the hotel beach to Positano’s harbor, avoiding the road traffic, and some opt not to leave at all. With just 55 rooms and suites and 200 staff, the resort feels like a private club, and has a return rate of 50 percent.
Ambitious hosts, the Cinques are hardly resting on their considerable laurels: In the past year, they’ve added the Palazzo Santa Croce, a meticulously restored five-bedroom Baroque Palace, and the two-bedroom Casa Sunrise. They’re also planning an indoor pool and an expanded spa at Il San Pietro.
Throughout, the family ethos is central, even defiant in an era when so many luxury properties are part of large international conglomerates. The Cinques are rumored to have rejected repeated offers from Bernard Arnault, a frequent guest.
It is difficult to imagine they would ever cede their beloved hotel, so deeply entwined in their identity, or that they would stop being perfectionists.
“When we close for the season, we always work on improving the hotel. We tell our long-term clients that we’re going to renovate their rooms, and they say, ‘no, for heaven’s sake, don’t touch my room, it is so beautiful,’” Cinque says. “Then when they return, they congratulate us, and say, ‘but it’s much more beautiful than before.’”