The legendary hotel where Osvaldo Borsani met Gianni Agnelli and the Florentine radicals

There are places where hospitality transcends the dimension of service, becoming a cultural legacy steeped in myth. The Augustus Hotel & Resort in Forte dei Marmi is one of these: an emblem of Italian elegance, discretion, and that timeless idea of summer that has, for decades, embodied the legend of Mediterranean living and warmed countless hearts.

The origins of the Augustus Hotel date back to Augusta Pesenti, who in 1953 transformed her modernist residence – Villa Pesenti – into a hotel. In collaboration with the great architect Osvaldo Borsani, she gave shape to a new idea of hospitality: informal yet refined, deeply connected to nature. Immersed in a lush private park, the complex came to life as a “collection of villas,” anticipating what is now known as the concept of a residenza diffusa: a resort made of charming independent architectures and verdant gardens, where space followed the quiet rhythm of everyday life.

With the summer reopening of Villa Radici, the resort now reaffirms its vital bond with memory. Hidden among the resort’s maritime pines, the villa – built in the 1930s – once belonged to Barbara Radici, sister of founder Augusta Pesenti. Its recent restoration preserves its early 20th-century soul while introducing a new lightness: soft tones, natural materials, open and luminous spaces reflecting the contemporary lifestyle of the Augustus. Spread over two levels and hosting only seven suites, Villa Radici expresses a discreet, intimate elegance – the very essence of the refined hospitality that has always defined the resort.

At the end of the 1960s, the Augustus expanded with Villa Agnelli, the private residence of the family at the helm of the FIAT automotive empire. Purchased in 1926 as a retreat from Turin’s industrial greyness, the villa embodied a new model of seaside living: elegant, in close contact with nature, and far from social noise. Its integration into the resort strengthened the Augustus’s bond with Italian aristocracy and international high society, turning it into a special destination frequented by the “celebrities of the time.”

It was along this stretch of the Tuscan coast that the idea of “living in a villa” took shape – a more discreet, intimate, refined, and authentic form of hospitality. In the 1950s and 1960s, this way of life came to define a broader cultural model. 

Gianni Agnelli, undisputed icon of Italian style, was a regular visitor to Versilia, attracting around him a circle of artists, intellectuals, and statesmen with whom he enjoyed spending his summers. Among them was Jacqueline Kennedy, a close friend who spent her summers in Capri and shared with Agnelli a sensibility shaped by discretion, exclusivity, and natural cosmopolitanism.

For many, Italy was no longer merely a destination, but a cultivated context of belonging: ephemeral, refined, and deeply Mediterranean. The Agnelli family were regarded as a sort of “Italian royal family,” and during those years they even had a private underground passage built beneath the coastal road, connecting their villa directly to the beach – without meeting anyone along the way. A gesture that spoke as much of privacy as of privilege. That very tunnel still exists today, reserved for guests of the Augustus Hotel, preserving a sense of intimacy in a landscape now dominated by visibility and constant attention.

The Augustus remains a constellation of villas, pathways, details, and fragrant flowers rather than a monolithic structure. From Villa Pesenti to Villa Franca and the more recent additions like Ala Bianca and Ala Anita, each space renews the resort’s commitment to an atmosphere-driven hospitality rather than one of display. Interiors retain a residential feel – high ceilings, floral linens, furnishings chosen for comfort rather than spectacle. The impression is not of design but of care and understated elegance. More than in a hotel room, one feels in a beautiful home.

Across from the property, the Augustus Beach Club continues this idea of hospitality, extending it to the shoreline. Here, the Agnelli family once had their private beach and a helipad for quick transfers from Piedmont. With its shaded cabanas and thoughtfully arranged loungers and canopies, the club restores to the beach a sense of intimacy and rhythm, where every detail invites one to slow down.

Among the symbolic places of the resort, the Bambaissa restaurant tells its own chapter in the Augustus story. Born in 1969, when the resort’s first Club House – then known as a discotheque – was renamed Bambaissa by the Florentine Radical Architecture group UFO, led by the dynamic Lapo Binazzi, it takes its name from a 1968 Walt Disney story that imagined a magical oasis inhabited by camels and large hourglass-shaped lanterns.
An ironic and visionary reference, it translated the dreamlike atmosphere of those years into architecture. Today, Bambaissa retains that imaginative lightness, still following the natural rhythm of the sea: menus evolve with the seasons and the day’s catch, offering simple yet precise dishes.

To stay at the Augustus is to enter a space shaped by continuity. It is not merely a matter of luxury or aesthetic refinement, but of a culture of hospitality that has evolved over time without ever betraying its founding values. Many of the resort’s rooms retain a lived-in, authentic, more domestic than scenographic character – including the one that once belonged to Gianni and Marella Agnelli. The gardens, punctuated by maritime pines and pathways weaving among the villas, are not just a backdrop but a living presence, accompanying and measuring the slow rhythm of each day.

And so, at the end of every summer, the season resumes its natural course. Bicycles glide through magnolia-scented air, fabrics fade slightly under the lingering sun, and the sea roars a little louder in the September wind. At the Augustus, there is no rush to change – only the desire to preserve what truly matters. In a world constantly chasing the new, the Augustus remains a fixed point in time and memory.