A love story built a hotel. When American socialite Patsy Daszel and her partner Michael Graham found a clifftop plot above Porto Ercole on Monte Argentario in the late 1960s, they intended it as a private retreat; Il Pellicano became a hotel almost by accident, as friends insisted on paying to stay. That origin story — private fantasy made semi-public — has never quite left the property, and explains why its terracotta-roofed villas, scattered across the macchia-covered hillside above the Tyrrhenian, carry the atmosphere of a wealthy acquaintance's summer house rather than a managed resort. The aerial view confirms what the interiors suggest: buildings absorbed into landscape, the pool terrace stepping down toward the sea in rough-cut local stone, Argentario's headlands dissolving into the distance beyond a line of white umbrellas. Inside, the rooms hold to a palette that feels assembled rather than designed — herringbone and brick-pattern terracotta floors worn to a warm finish, exposed dark timber ceiling beams, four-poster beds dressed in chartreuse or sage, wardrobe panels printed with ornithological illustrations borrowed from natural history archives. A brass-framed glass console, a black ceramic lamp, a potted topiary on the sill: the effect is closer to a curated private collection than to hotel furnishing. On the restaurant terrace, candy-striped awnings billow above iron bistro chairs painted racing green, bougainvillea crowding the rail — a scene unchanged, in spirit at least, since the Agnelli set first made this stretch of Maremma coast their own.

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The elegant five-star hotel, located in Tuscany's Maremma region, was built in the mid-1960s as a love nest for Michael and Patricia Graham and it is today part of The Leading Hotels of the World. The home, called Il Pellicano as a tribute to the first time the couple met at Pelican Point in California, was initially a club for the Grahams' friends, but was subsequently expanded and opened to friends of friends. However, a few things remained the same: the pleasure of feeling at home and the glamorous and slightly retro atmosphere. The hotel's discrete luxury and the still-rugged Tuscan countryside attract the international jet set. Today, the cottages and the central building are suspended between the sky and the sea, with large rooms, windows and terraces where it's unclear where the indoors end and the outdoors begin. There are pathways and stairways, fragrant gardens and discrete corners, a restaurant with one Michelin stars and three Gambero Rosso forks, a heated sea-water swimming pool, a spa with a sea view to soothe both the body and the soul, and for those wanting to take a dip in the Tyrrhenian Sea, a white platform with chaise longue and immaculate parasols.