The small resort of Porto Rafael was founded on the North Eastern coast of Sardinia, Italy, by Raphael Neville, Count of Berlanga de Duero, in the late 1950s.
Neville was an artist, and the son of Edgar Neville the Hollywood film director, playwright and novelist. His grandfather was the director of the Julius Neville motor company in Spain.. Raphael Neville's maternal family were Spanish aristocrats; his grandmother Maria Romree Y Palacios was a lady in waiting in the Spanish court and the family title was inherited through the male line from her.. His mother Angeles Rubio Arguelles y Allessandri was founding patron of a theatre in Malaga, Spain, named Teatro Ara where she also directed plays (https://web.archive.org/web/20131012110422/http://www.guateque.net/nuestros_queridos_cines.htm). Raphael was born on 26 August 1926 and sent to Paris and London to be educated. His father wanted him to study Architecture in Paris, but his bohemian son had other ideas, and became a chorus dancer in the Follies Bergeres dancing in Josephine Baker's shows.
In 1959, Raphael took a trip to Sardinia, where he stumbled upon a small bay facing the Maddalena archipelago and he fell irrevocably in love with it. He bought a small patch of land between Baia di Nelson (where Lord Nelson had once anchored his fleet) and Punta Sardegna, near the town of Palau, from a local landowner called Paolo Cudoni - and for the rest of his life, he shaped it like he had first seen in a dream., so "Sognare e Vivere" (to dream and to live) became the motto of his eponymous resort.
In 1960, with the help of his friend the American actress Shirley Douglas, who later married Donald Sutherland, Neville began construction of a small port which he more or less designed himself. Many of the earliest buildings and the tiny chapel of Saint Rita were designed by Michele Busiri Vici, the renowned architect working for the Aga Khan, 30 minutes along the coast at Porto Cervo. Shortly afterwards architects such as Alberto Ponis, who been an assistant to Denys Lasdun working on the National Theatre in London, arrived to add a gently modernist style to the resort, and Ponis has written several books on the architecture of Porto Cervo and Porto Rafael.
Several celebrities built houses in Porto Raphael, choosing it above the more flashy Porto Cervo because there were no hotels, it was quiet, secluded and far from prying paparazzi. . One of the first to buy land and build a house, designed by Michele Busiri Vici, was Peter Ward, a brother of the Earl of Dudley. Then came a cousin of the Aga Khan, the Guinness heiress Maureen Dufferin (Maureen Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava) Obituary
Along with the chapel, the centre of Porto Raphael includes a small delicatessen, two little bars, a restaurant, various boutiques, the beach beyond the Piazetta, and a wooden pontoon for incoming tenders. There is also a yacht club at Marina Porto Rafael, five small beaches and two tennis courts. . In 1961 Raphael Neville was joined by Italian banker Dino Da Ponte and civil engineer, Roddy Wilson, and together they formed the Anglo-Italiana company, offering in total 140 hectares of land between the Fortress at Monte Altura and Punta Sardegna, for private sale and development. All the plots have long since been sold. The resort has always been developed with care and remains valued for its charm and privacy.
Raphael Neville had many friends who flocked to his resort,. and he spent his summers in Porto Rafael until his death in 1996. His birthday is celebrated in the Piazetta every year on 11 August.
References
Obituary of Raphael Neville in La Republica
"Sardinia" by Alberto Ponis
"Archivio Corriere della Sera". corriere della sera. 4 December 1996. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
"Sardinia" by Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls