The Fustinoni Family — Giovanni → Franca →

Editorial note

This is a family record centred on Grand Hotel Miramare in Santa Margherita Ligure. The Fustinoni family did not found the hotel: Miramare dates to 1903. The family authorship begins in 1945, when Giovanni Fustinoni acquired the property and, with his wife Franca, began the stewardship line that continues today. Current hotel materials identify Andrea Fustinoni as owner and Managing Director and describe Andrea and his husband Fabio as active daily presences in the house. The entry therefore separates the pre-1945 grand-hotel history from the Fustinoni era while treating Giovanni & Franca → Andrea & Fabio as the defining family arc.

1 · Before the fustinonis

Grand Hotel Miramare opened in 1903 and belonged to the first generation of grand hotels on the Ligurian Riviera. Its history therefore predates the Fustinoni family by more than four decades.

2 · Santa Margherita becomes a destination

The hotel witnessed Santa Margherita Ligure’s transformation from fishing town into an international Riviera destination serving royal families, political leaders, celebrities and leisure travellers.

3 · 1933 — Marconi

In August 1933 Guglielmo Marconi used the Miramare as a headquarters for a celebrated radio experiment. The hotel still preserves the Marconi association in its historical narrative and suite naming.

4 · 1945 — Giovanni Fustinoni

Giovanni Fustinoni acquired Grand Hotel Miramare in 1945, immediately after the Second World War. This acquisition — not the 1903 opening — is the beginning of the Fustinoni hospitality dynasty.

5 · Franca

Official hotel history explicitly places Franca beside Giovanni in the 1945 takeover and subsequent family operation. The Fustinoni story should therefore begin with a couple, not a solitary male purchaser.

6 · Buy after the war

The timing matters. European resort hospitality was emerging from war into a new era of mobility, prosperity and leisure. Giovanni acquired a historic hotel at the moment when the Riviera itself was about to be reinvented.

7 · Sport and the sea

Current Miramare storytelling describes Giovanni as passionate about sport and the sea. He wanted both the hotel and Santa Margherita to become places where people came not only to stay but to enjoy themselves.

8 · Water-skiing

Giovanni organized water-skiing groups and other recreational activities. The hotelier’s role extended beyond guestrooms: create reasons to spend the day, create a social scene, and make the destination feel alive.

9 · Barracuda

Family recollections preserve the memory of Barracuda, the summer night club and beach-world associated with the Miramare. Leisure, nightlife and seaside culture helped connect the hotel to the post-war Riviera’s social mythology.

10 · Shangri-La

Andrea’s recollections also describe Shangri-La, the winter night club. The hotel’s social world changed with the seasons rather than disappearing when summer ended.

11 · Dolce vita before the phrase becomes branding

The post-war Miramare attracted the international society associated with the Italian and French Rivieras. The Fustinoni family was not simply operating rooms; it was participating in the creation of a social destination.

12 · 1947 — Olivier and Leigh

The hotel’s official history highlights Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh among its celebrated guests, recording their Riviera honeymoon stay in 1947. Famous guests reinforced the Miramare’s post-war glamour.

13 · Giovanni as restless entrepreneur

In the miramART catalogue, Andrea remembers his father as a man constantly launching new economic, cultural and recreational ventures and trying to anticipate changing desires. The founder-generation character was movement rather than preservation alone.

14 · Compete by adding life

Giovanni’s approach suggests a useful distinction: a grand hotel can become more competitive not only by adding rooms or luxury finishes, but by adding activity, culture and sociability around the stay.

15 · Family childhood inside the hotel

Andrea’s recollections of childhood around the night clubs show the hotel as family environment as well as workplace. Hospitality knowledge accumulated through daily proximity long before formal leadership.

16 · Andrea enters the hotel

Current Miramare materials state that Andrea began working in the hotel in the 1980s. The next-generation transition was therefore gradual, built through decades inside the institution rather than a sudden inheritance.

17 · 1997 — Art collecting

Andrea began his personal art collection in 1997. What started as a private interest would later become part of the hotel’s cultural identity.

18 · Art from the grandparents

Andrea has described early exposure to art through both grandfathers: one associated with marine painting, the other with rural landscapes and art-history books. Collecting entered the modern Miramare through family memory as well as contemporary taste.

19 · Miramart

Andrea and Fabio Fustinoni, together with Andrea Botto, founded the non-profit cultural association miramART. The initiative brings contemporary art into the hotel and supports artists through acquisitions and exhibitions.

20 · The hotel as exhibition space

Works acquired through miramART enter the Grand Hotel Miramare collection and are displayed in the property. Art becomes part of the guest environment rather than a separate cultural programme.

21 · Andrea + Fabio

The hotel’s own family narrative describes Andrea drinking his espresso, Fabio walking their dog through the park, and both discussing where an artwork should hang. The detail is strategically important: family ownership is made visible through ordinary daily presence.

22 · Family presence as luxury

For an independent hotel, owner visibility can create a form of reassurance that a corporate brand cannot easily reproduce. The guest senses that someone with a permanent stake in the house is physically there.

23 · Guardians and artists

Current hotel language describes the family as the Miramare’s 'guardians and artists.' The phrase captures the dual responsibility: preserve what already exists and keep adding something of the present.

24 · Do not turn a grand hotel into a museum

The modern Fustinoni strategy is not historical reconstruction. Art Nouveau heritage coexists with contemporary design, art and a deliberately relaxed atmosphere.

25 · 72 rooms and suites

Current materials describe 72 rooms and suites. Miramare is large enough to function as a full five-star resort hotel but small enough for family presence to remain perceptible.

26 · The garden

The private garden climbs from the hotel toward the lower slopes of Mount Portofino. Landscape gives the property depth beyond its seafront façade and creates another form of Riviera retreat.

27 · Bagni Miramare

The hotel’s historic private beach sits directly across from the property. Current hotel materials identify Elena Fustinoni as its manager, demonstrating that family participation extends beyond the principal owner role.

28 · The sea as daily ritual

Beach, saltwater pool, terrace and watersports make the sea part of the operating rhythm rather than merely the view. The Fustinoni proposition is built around how Riviera summer is lived.

29 · Estate Italiana

The contemporary positioning 'Estate Italiana' reframes the hotel around a broader cultural idea: sun, sea, food, aperitivo, fashion, art, family and unhurried pleasure.

30 · From grand hotel formality to relaxed luxury

The modern Miramare deliberately combines grand-hotel heritage with familiar warmth and a less formal Riviera mood. The objective is not to erase elegance but to remove stiffness.

31 · Brand refresh

Ahead of the hotel’s 120th anniversary, Andrea and Fabio worked on a new brand positioning intended to express the contemporary character more accurately. Heritage was treated as a foundation, not a complete marketing proposition.

32 · Local experience

The renewed positioning emphasizes the Riviera beyond the hotel: Portofino, Camogli, Genoa, Sestri Levante, Cinque Terre, Porto Venere and Ligurian artisans. The hotel presents itself as a gateway to a living region.

33 · Maestros of the Riviera

Current storytelling celebrates local makers and workshops through the 'Maestros of the Riviera' series. Luxury is connected to accumulated regional craft rather than only international luxury brands.

34 · Leading hotels of the world

Grand Hotel Miramare operates as an independent family hotel while belonging to The Leading Hotels of the World. The affiliation supplies global recognition and distribution without replacing family identity.

35 · One hotel, deep ownership

Unlike families that scale into multi-property groups, the Fustinoni model remains concentrated around one defining hotel and its immediate beach, garden, cultural and Riviera ecosystem.

36 · Depth instead of portfolio

The strategic choice is depth: keep refining one institution across generations rather than using its success as a platform for geographic expansion.

37 · What the family changed

Giovanni and Franca took over an established pre-war grand hotel and repositioned it for the social and recreational energy of the post-war Riviera. Giovanni added sport, nightlife and destination activity. Later family stewardship preserved the house while Andrea and Fabio shifted its contemporary expression toward art, relaxed luxury, local culture and Estate Italiana. The family’s contribution is therefore not founding the Miramare but repeatedly translating the same seafront institution for changing ideas of Riviera life.

39 · The Fustinoni Family and Roberto Sciò

Both represent Italian seaside hospitality built around one highly distinctive place and strong owner curation. Sciò protects Il Pellicano through aesthetic restraint and mythology. Fustinoni combines grand-hotel heritage with family warmth, art and a wider Riviera social world. Sciò edits a hideaway. Fustinoni keeps a seaside institution alive.

40 · The Fustinoni Family and Jeanne Augier

Both later owners inherit rather than found historic grand hotels and make personal taste visible in the house. Augier turns Le Negresco into an intensely personal museum. Andrea and Fabio use contemporary art more lightly within a relaxed Riviera proposition. Augier makes art the dominant identity. Fustinoni lets art converse with summer life.

41 · The Fustinoni Family and The Daktylides Family

Both are Mediterranean family hospitality stories deeply rooted in one geography. Daktylides scales to many hotels across Mykonos. Fustinoni stays concentrated in one grand hotel in Santa Margherita. Daktylides deepens the island through portfolio. Fustinoni deepens the house through generations.

42 · LHL connections

• Giovanni Fustinoni — founding family principal · acquired Miramare 1945.
• Franca Fustinoni — founding family co-author.
• Andrea Fustinoni — current owner and Managing Director · in hotel since the 1980s.
• Fabio Fustinoni — contemporary family co-author · miramART co-founder.
• Elena Fustinoni — manager of Bagni Miramare in current hotel materials.
• Grand Hotel Miramare · Santa Margherita Ligure — defining hospitality institution · opened 1903.
• Bagni Miramare · garden · saltwater pool · Riviera setting — defining resort ecosystem.
• miramART — contemporary-art platform and collection.
• The Leading Hotels of the World — international affiliation.
• Estate Italiana · Maestros of the Riviera — defining contemporary cultural positioning.

43 · Timeline

• 1903Grand Hotel Miramare opens in Santa Margherita Ligure.
• 1933Guglielmo Marconi uses the hotel as headquarters for a celebrated radio experiment.
• 1945Giovanni Fustinoni acquires the hotel; the family stewardship era begins with Giovanni and Franca.
• Late 1940s–1960sMiramare develops as a post-war Riviera social and leisure institution; watersports and nightlife become important parts of its identity.
• 1947Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh are among the hotel’s celebrated post-war guests.
• 1980sAndrea Fustinoni begins working in the hotel.
• 1997Andrea begins his personal art collection.
• 2000s–2010sfamily stewardship continues with ongoing physical and experiential renewal.
• 2020sAndrea serves as owner and Managing Director; Andrea and Fabio are visible contemporary family custodians.
• 2022–2023major brand refresh around the hotel’s 120th anniversary develops the Estate Italiana positioning.
• 2020smiramART expands the contemporary collection and acquisition programme; Elena Fustinoni manages Bagni Miramare.
• 2026Miramare continues as a family-run 72-room-and-suite five-star Riviera hotel.

44 · LHL story — Make the Grand Hotel Fun Again

The war is over.

You buy a grand hotel by the sea.

Do not only restore the rooms.

Put people on water skis.

Open the beach.

Create the night club.

Give them a reason to stay outside after dinner.

A resort becomes memorable when the hotel does more than house the holiday.

It helps invent the holiday.

45 · A second story — The Owner Should Be Visible

The guest sees the Managing Director drinking espresso.

His husband walks the dog through the garden.

They stop in front of an empty wall and argue about the next artwork.

Nothing has been staged for the guest.

That is why it works.

Family ownership becomes luxury when ownership is not an abstract line on a corporate chart but a human presence in the house.

46 · Legacy

The Fustinoni family belongs in the Luxury Hospitality Library because it shows how a family can become the author of a hotel it did not found. Grand Hotel Miramare already possessed architecture, location and pre-war history when Giovanni Fustinoni acquired it in 1945. His achievement, with Franca, was to give that inherited grand hotel a new post-war life built around sport, sociability, sea and the changing culture of the Riviera. Andrea’s generation inherited a different problem: the hotel no longer needed to discover leisure, but it did need to remain contemporary without losing the ease that made it loved. Art collecting, miramART, regional craft, visible owner presence and the Estate Italiana positioning became tools for that reinterpretation. The family has largely resisted the temptation to turn one successful hotel into a geographically dispersed group. Instead, it has deepened one institution. That makes the Fustinoni model a useful counterpoint to hospitality dynasties built on expansion: sometimes stewardship means allowing one hotel to absorb generation after generation of new ideas while remaining unmistakably the same house.