”Why do I live in Cortina?” asks Silvia Dona dalle Rose, leaning against her balcony rail with the town spread out beneath her. ”A lot of reasons-and because it`s the most beautiful place on Earth.”
Her assessment is in line with most of the denizens of this little valley, which is 4,000 feet up in the jagged Dolomites and only two hours north of Venice.
It is a ”champagne glass” of a valley, so called because it is unusually broad and gently curved, unlike the spectacular but treacherous notches in the Alps. Normally, 8,000 people live here. In high season, the population swells to 40,000. At no time does the champagne glass bubble more than the two weeks between Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6.
Fiat`s Gianni Agnelli has been known to arrive in his private helicopter, although his brother Umberto can be seen more often, as can his sister Clara, once the Contessa von Furstenburg and now the Contessa Nuvoletti.
Naturally, Italy`s fashion lights are also Cortina regulars: Genny`s Donatella Girombelli, Alda Fendi and Tai Missoni, who is a native of the Veneto, Cortina`s province.
By all measures, Cortina does not measure up to St. Moritz or Gstaad as an international playground, but that suits the Italians who frequent it just fine.
”There are those who come to Cortina and say, `This is it?”` jokes Dona dalle Rose. ”There are not a lot of internationally famous names, no big clubs . . .”
OFFERS VACATION
What it does offer, though, to some of Italy`s most important industrialists and politicians, is a vacation that is distinctly Italian. Relatively few tourists come here from other countries.
”Cortina is a place that is difficult to get to from anywhere but Italy,” says Gloria Reale, adding that other nearby valleys, closer to the Austrian border, tend to attract German tourists. This is not considered a good sign among those natives used to seeing hordes of them in Venice, Rome and Florence.
There are other distinguishing factors that Italians point to with pride. ”The skiing here is better and more difficult than it is in either St. Moritz or Gstaad,” says Dona dalle Rose. ”And the social life in St. Moritz revolves around the hotels, so it tends to be a bit more grand, more formal.” Skiing is what Cortina offers in abundance. The main attraction, however, is the whirl of social activity that passes from night to night in cozy, wood- paneled houses of the small group that always serves as annual hosts.
”There are two types of people who come to Cortina-excluding the tourists,” says Paola Marzotto, whose father, Umberto, is one of Italy`s biggest industrialists. ”Those who are happy that it`s the holidays and everybody`s here, and the sportivi who love it for the skiing, but only really enjoy it in March when there are fewer crowds.”
”I do it just to say I`ve done it,” admits her mother, socialite Marta Marzotto, adding that it`s common for her to be chased down the slopes by prying paparazzi.
”Evenings are never overly formal, though they have become overdressed,” complains Luciana Are, who with her husband owns one of Cortina`s most beautiful homes. ”It use to be that on New Year`s Eve, the men would wear tuxedos, which is a bit much up in the mountains. Now a nice blue suit is more acceptable.”
Maneuvering in Cortina`s social waters, not surprisingly, requires either strong alliances or Swiss-like neutrality.
”There are a lot of groups in Cortina,” says Antonia Zoppas, ”but I don`t like to be tied to any one.”
”The only way not to offend anyone is to turn down every invitation and stay in the house,” adds Alda Fendi. ”My friends understand that I come to Cortina to relax, and not to go to a huge dinner every night. People ask why in the world I come to Cortina after Christmas. It`s not for the social life, it`s really the only time I can get away.”
When she returns to Rome, she points out, she has to begin work on Fendi`s fur collection with Karl Lagerfeld. The problem of overbooking is not a small one for her: During the high season, invitations average three per day.
But for the real habitues, there are fixed dates that have become so long established as to become traditional. The Ares have Dec. 23 and 29, while Marta Marzotto has two of the prime ones: Christmas Eve and New Year`s Eve.
”I usually have something on Christmas Eve for the poor people who are here in hotels,” she says. ”We have a Christmas tree and a nice dinner.”
DIDN`T HOLD PARTY
This year, however, she didn`t hold her New Year`s party, which had some tongues wagging that it was the result of her highly publicized divorce from Conte Umberto Marzotto. Marzotto, who reportedly has one of the busiest social calendars in town, seems anything but gloomy.
”It`s not all as exclusive as it may seem,” she says. ”We keep our table set for 12 so that anyone who drops by can stay for lunch. And if you happen to be my guest, it`s never a problem coming along to someone else`s dinner.”
She may be one of the few in a position to do so. Comments one observer,
”Marta Marzotto and Silvia Dona are the two queens of Cortina and Porto Rotondo. To each other, they`re always `Dear` and as friendly as can be. But behind each other`s backs, it`s always who has the more beautiful house or the biggest jewels.”
In one sense, the real Queen of Cortina, though, is Marilena Barilla, though she would be the first to deny it.
”I find the social life here rather superficial, though that can be true everywhere. I have no feeling for that,” Barilla says, preferring small dinners with a few friends in her comfortable, sun-filled house a little beyond the center of town.
Barilla consciously avoids the usual holiday whirl, but her name and presence carry plenty of social muscle. Wearing a favorite sweater and slacks, free of the massive baubles preferred in Cortina, the unaffected Barilla is definitely one of the sportivi, those who come to Cortina less for the cachet than for the air, the mountains and-though she no longer does-for the skiing. ”Cortina is a place where you can see people you never seem to see anywhere else,” she says. ”I wouldn`t really want to call them `vacation friends,` because that sounds like something less than a real friend. But it is true that people come here from all over the country, and it`s a good time to catch up. For instance, I never get to see Donatella Girombelli anywhere but here.”
Girombelli, for her part, keeps a small apartment in Cortina where she only spends two weeks out of the year. ”I absolutely hate the cold,” she admits.
Cortina is assured of continued exclusivity by a recent law that prevents any new building, thereby putting a premium on the relatively few houses and apartments available. A view of Cortina from above reveals no big condominium projects and no high-rises.
Casa Barilla, designed by Cortina`s premiere architect, Luigi Vietti, who also built the Barillas` house in Parma, is a welcoming mixture of traditional Cortinese architecture and modern influence.
”When I build a new house,” explains Vietti, ”I use as a guide the needs and wants of the clients. I like to know them personally as well as I can. For the Barilla house, one of the main requirements was space, which excluded strictly traditional Cortinese architecture.”
The result is a modern house with traditional elements. The expansive ceiling of the living room, for example, is a paneled ceiling from a much smaller room, framed by reworked antique planks. The dining room, on the other hand, was installed intact, with the new room sized to fit the paneled inserts.
The entrance to the house is a spectacular, tunnel-like space that gives off a feeling of solidity and warmth evocative of a traditional house.
Although not designed by Vietti, the Ares` house typifies this adaptation of older structures. The sitting room is reconstructed from a mountain house, complete with painted wood-paneled walls on which there is an inscription from each family marriage; original ceilings, and 17th and 18th Century Tyrolean, Venetian and Tuscan antiques.
A real contrast to the usual Cortina house is the cozy apartment of Alda Fendi, done in the early 19th Century Biedermeier style.
”I was interested in doing something completely different than what one usually finds around here,” Fendi remarks. ”I spend a lot of time at home when I come here, and so I wanted it to have a personal feeling.”
ENTERTAINING AT HOME
That most entertaining is done a casa, at home, is reflected in the paucity of really fine restaurants-a lack which might otherwise be considered odd in a vacation spot of this caliber.
In fact, the cognoscenti can rattle off four names without hesitation, beyond which few bother to venture (and at which, as everywhere else, reservations must be made weeks in advance): Il Meloncino, Il Lago, Il Caminetto and El Toula.
Il Caminetto has been compared to a ski club in the afternoon by its habitues, with its spacious sun deck just off Il Canalone, one of Cortina`s busiest slopes. Those more seriously inclined towards the sport that made Cortina famous pooh-pooh the place.
Going to Il Caminetto at 1 for lunch is hardly a skier`s paradise,” says Daniela d`Amelio. ”You`re not going to get back up on the slopes before 3, and then you have no energy for the hour or so left of skiing.”
The best restaurant in Cortina, though, is tiny Il Meloncino, with its breathtaking view of the city, perhaps the best in town. It is not only Cortina`s most exclusive restaurant (fewer than 30 are seated at dinner), but the town`s only restaurant to have been awarded a star by Michelin. Il Meloncino was recently joined by a larger counterpart, Il Lago-on a little frozen lake near the slopes-that is also managed by the Melon family.
The mood in all of Cortina is rustic. (Even El Toula, whose Rome and Milan branches are the height of chic, has a chicken coop out back.) At home the feeling is the same. For lunch, the Ares serve friends a hefty repast of risotto with mushrooms, polenta, lasagna, braised beef and a magnificent veal shank. Dinner might be topped off with an enormous panettone, sporting a chocolate Nativity scene, often bringing guests to spontaneous applause.
When people do venture out to brave the crowds in the center, they usually meet at the bar in the Hotel de la Poste, and then out to nearby Corso Italia and Piazza Venezia, both of which are closed to traffic.
They become the scene of a preprandial parade at the hour between the closing of the shops for the morning and lunch. The look is fur, fur, fur with an occasional Tyrolean hat thrown in. The only thing missing are the skiers. –
