'HOSTAL DE LA GAVINA', THE AMERICAN FILMS IN S’AGARÓ

Extracted from www.lagavina.com

Having first set eyes on the area back in the 1920s, pioneering hotelier Josep Ensesa i Gubert had a vision. He was fixated with the stretch of beach between Bahia de Sant Pol and Sa Concha, which was not much more than a piece of uninhabited land back then, but Ensesa could see the potential. He persuaded his father to invest in the untapped land where, together with local architect Rafael Maso i Valentí, the pair, would go on to conceive a garden city overlooking this splendid corner of the Mediterranean, a place where media and the arts would stylishly converge. This included the magnificent Loggia de Senya Blanca, the first property built in the new S’Agaró development in 1922. But the jewel in the crown was Hostal de la Gavina, which opened ten years later on 2 January 1932, Catalunya's only five-star Grand Luxe resort hotel.

Maso i Valenti, an advocate of Noucentista style, incorporated local architectural nuances into his design: porticos, towers, terraces and low-pitched roofs which would help lure in a sophisticated clientele with refined artistic tastes –the great Salvador Dalí became a regular. La Gavina remains a byword for luxury and one of the most revered hotel addresses in the country. Under the guidance of Julia, Virginia, Carina and Josep Ensesa Viñas, the fourth generation of the Ensesa family carry on the mantle of their predecessors with the same enthusiasm.

The affluent neighbourhood of S'Agaró, which celebrated its 100th Anniversary in 2024, has often been described as the Beverly Hills of the Costa Brava. So it's no surprise it’s had its fair share of silver-screen stars who've passed beneath its iconic red canopied arcade entrance over the years: from Ava Gardner and Britt Ekland to John Wayne and Jack Nicholson to name but a few. Successions of tree-lined avenidas, which surround Hostal de la Gavina, wind their way up to decadent villas, while at the foot of the hotel, the idyllic coastal path of the Camí de Ronda, with its iconic tamarind trees interspersed with umbrella pines, snakes its way around the glistening bay.

The presence of seagulls catching the maritime breeze and soaring majestically above the bay inspired the hotel's name: gavina in Catalan means seagull – indeed the hotel's iconic motif is based on the gulls' dihedral angled wings. The 'hostal' part of the hotel’s name was consciously retained in order to reflect the warm and homely service offered to guests, taking inspiration from typical Catalan roadside houses. La Gavina has the feel of a grande dame, a place so rarefied in the modern world, beautifully preserving the charm of a bygone era with the contemporary in the most subtle and timeless way. 

S'Agaró and La Gavina have grown steadily in unison without ever losing sight of their origins. What started out as a modest 11-room property charging 25 pesetas per night, now houses 76 rooms and suites, with the addition of a show-stopping seawater outdoor pool and Valmont Spa, several restaurants alongside meeting and special events facilities. La Gavina continues to proudly encapsulate the original style and heritage which was installed on day one of its opening.

La Gavina's guest book reads like a Who's Who of the silver screen. S'Agaró has been the stylish backdrop of famous Hollywood movies such as Pandora with Ava Gardner and Suddenly Last Summer starring Elizabeth Taylor. Those to have bedded down here include Lee Van Cleef, Peter Sellers, Britt Ekland, John Wayne, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Liam Neeson, Laurence Olivier, Dirk Bogarde and Maureen Swanson while the late Johan Cruyff would often bring his FC Barcelona teams to stay.

Latterly Tom Waits, Santana and Lady Gaga. Culture and the arts have also played an active part in shaping La Gavina's rich history. Numerous artists, Nobel prize winners and other academics have not only holidayed here but used the property professionally as a meeting point for recitals and musical performances. Cole Porter, Josep Pla, Josep Carreras, Orson Welles and Rudolf Nureyev, are just a few of the luminaries to have passed through the Adolf Florensa designed lobby.

More information: Centenari S'Agaró

Today, The Grandma and her friends have visited Hostal de la Gavina, meeting place of many famous film stars, musicians, political figures and Nobel Prize winners, and set of some popular American films interpreted by Hollywood stars like Ava Gardner, James Mason, Orson Welles, Montgomery Clift or Katharine Hepburn.

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is a 1951 British Technicolor romantic fantasy drama film written and directed by Albert Lewin. The screenplay is based on legend of the Flying Dutchman.

The film stars Ava Gardner and James Mason in the title roles, with Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim, Harold Warrender, Mario Cabré, and Marius Goring in supporting parts.

More information: The Guardian

 I have only one rule in acting 
-trust the director and give him heart and soul.

Ava Gardner

Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 Southern Gothic psychological drama mystery film based on the 1958 play of the same name by Tennessee Williams. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift with Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge, and Gary Raymond. It was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Sam Spiegel from a screenplay by Gore Vidal and Williams with cinematography by Jack Hildyard and production design by Oliver Messel. The musical score was composed by Buxton Orr, using themes by Malcolm Arnold.

The plot centers on Catherine Holly, a young woman who, at the insistence of her wealthy aunt, is being evaluated by a psychiatric doctor to receive a lobotomy after witnessing the death of her cousin Sebastian Venable while traveling with him in the (fictional) island of Cabeza de Lobo the previous summer.

More information: Cine Muse

Everything makes me nervous -except making films. 

Elizabeth Taylor

 

Mr. Arkadin, also released as Confidential Report, is a 1955 thriller film noir written, produced and directed by Orson Welles. It stars Welles, Robert Arden, Paola Mori, Michael Redgrave, Patricia Medina, Akim Tamiroff, Peter van Eyck, and Katina Paxinou. The film centers on an American smuggler (Arden) who is hired by a wealthy amnesiac, the titular Arkadin (Welles), to investigate his mysterious past.

The screenplay was based on scripts Welles had originally co-authored for his radio drama series The Adventures of Harry Lime. A co-production of France, Spain, and Switzerland, it was shot in several locations throughout Western Europe.

Like many of Welles' films, Mr. Arkadin had a difficult production and was released in several different versions. Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum identified at least seven different versions of the story. The film has been praised by directors like Christopher Nolan and Shinji Aoyama.

More information: Crime Reads

My kind of director is an actor-director who writes.

Orson Welles

 

Mysterious Island, in UK Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, is a 1961 science fiction adventure film about prisoners in the American Civil War who escape in a balloon and then find themselves stranded on a remote island populated by giant animals.

Loosely based upon the 1874 novel The Mysterious Island (L'Île mystérieuse) by Jules Verne (which was the sequel to two other novels by Verne, 1867's In Search of the Castaways and 1870's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas), the film was produced by Charles H. Schneer and directed by Cy Endfield.

Shot in Catalonia, and at Shepperton Studios, England, the film serves as a showcase for Ray Harryhausen's stop motion animation effects. Like several of Harryhausen's classic productions, the musical score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.

More information: Mana Pop

The sea is everything. 
It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. 
Its breath is pure and healthy. 
It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, 
for he feels life stirring on all sides.

Jules Verne

DISCOVERING S'AGARÓ & SANT POL ON THE COSTA BRAVA

Summer is always a time for reunions. Today, The Grandma has arrived in Sant Pol (Sant Feliu de Guíxols) to spend a few days with her dear friends Claire Fontaine, Joseph de Ca'th Lon and Corto Maltese.

They are enjoying two beautiful places full of history and natural beauty such as Sant Pol and S'Agaró. A well-deserved holidays after a very intense year. 

S'Agaró is an upmarket resort on the Costa Brava between Sant Feliu de Guíxols and Platja d'Aro. It is part of the municipality of Castell-Platja d'Aro, itself in the comarca of Baix Empordà and province of Girona in Catalonia. The resort was developed from the early 1920s on the peninsular between the beaches of Platja de Sant Pol and Platja de Sa Conca.

To date, the promontory contains about 60 exclusive houses and hotels. The world famous five-star Hostal de la Gavina dominates the view from Sant Pol beach. The original development has been declared as a historical complex and protected as a cultural asset of national interest since 1995.

The GR 92 long-distance footpath, which runs the length the Mediterranean coast, uses the historic camí de ronda that follows S'Agaró's coastline. The camí de ronda was rebuilt as part of the development, creating a walk in a semi-artificial landscape between sea, rocks and pines that integrates the urbanization with nature. To the north, the GR 92 crosses the beach of Sa Conca and diverts around the extensive Marina de Port d'Oro to reach Platja d'Aro. To the south it passes along the beach of Sant Pol to reach Sant Feliu de Guíxols.

In 1916, the Girona industrialist Josep Ensesa i Pujades purchased a plot of land in between the beaches of Sant Pol and Sa Conca, near the mouth of a stream called Es Garó. His initial plan was to build a summer house, but he bought more land around it to make more plots, and thus the project to develop the area was born. The new area didn't have a name, so the family chose to call it after the stream that ran through it.

However, at least in part due to the disruption caused by the First World War, the plan did not initially prosper. After the war, Josep Ensesa i Gubert, the son of Josep Ensesa i Pujades, built the first house on the plot, called Senya Blanca and completed in 1924, entrusting the design to the architect Rafael Masó i Valentí. The house had neither electricity nor running water. More land was then bought, and the whole development entrusted to Masó, who was inspired by the ideas of the garden city movement of the time. Specifically, it is known the Masó had visited the garden city of Hellerau, near Dresden, in 1912.

It was Masó's role to assure that the development, which was planned as a community of seaside villas and a small inn, would be in sympathy with the landscape. Masó was a campaigner for traditional Catalan design, and he drew on the local architectural vocabulary of porticos, towers, terraces and low rooflines to conjure a colony aimed at those with artistic tastes. Purchasers of land bound themselves to carefully drawn contracts that guaranteed buildings of visual unity. After Masó's death, in 1935, Francesc Folguera took over the project, going on to build the church situated on the highest point of the resort.

Although originally built by Masó as a dwelling and soon after converted to a hotel, the current Hostal de la Gavina is largely the work of Folguera. Since the early 1950s famous Hollywood movies like Pandora and the Flying Dutchman with Ava Gardner, Suddenly Last Summer with Elizabeth Taylor and Mr. Arkadin by Orson Welles were shot in S'Agaró. This made the Hostal de La Gavina a meeting place of many famous film stars, musicians, political figures and Nobel Prize winners. The beach scenes in the movie Mysterious Island (1961) were filmed at S'Agaró.

Michael Frayn, the English comic writer, devoted a number of pieces about the developers of S'Agaro and their vision in The Guardian between 1960 and 1962, collected in The Original Michael Frayn.

A huge construction boom took place inland from the original resort, which does not form part of the gated community.

More information: Visit Guíxols

The three great elemental sounds 

in nature are the sound of rain, 

the sound of wind in a primeval wood,

and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.

Henry Beston