Villa for sale in Costa Smeralda - Villa Arzachena

SARDINIA - ARZACHENA The territory of the comune of Arzachena stretches for a surface area of around 240 sq. km with more than eighty kilometres of sea coast including the world-famous Costa Smeralda, rich with Mediterranean shrub (mastic trees, juniper and oleasters), rocks modelled by nature and wonderful inlets and bays. It sprung up in the Roman period of “Turibulum Minor” and until the nineteenth century was only a cluster of houses gathered around the Church of Santa Maria, dedicated to the Madonna della Neve (1776). In March 1962 a small group of international entrepreneurs, headed by Prince Karim Aga Khan, set up the Costa Smeralda Consortium with the aim of developing tourism in the vast area of the Arzachena territory. In this area a number of high-class structures were gradually built, attracting an elite kind of tourism; luxury hotels and exclusive villas became the summer destination for members of high society and the economic leaders of the world. From the very beginning, the project’s aim was to preserve the beauty of the territory by using particular buildings and design which respected the natural landscape. Thus, the Costa Smeralda style was born, greatly inspired by the typical construction features of provincial Sardinia and blending discreetly into the coastal background of rocks and vegetation. Its urban layout is one of the most distinctive in Sardinia due not only to the use of materials like the Sardinian pink granite but also for its regular buildings and road system.