Costa Smeralda (Emerald Coast) is a resort destination in northern Sardinia, Italy. Parisian Architect and founder of Stera Architectures, Stefania Stera, grew up in this area and remembers climbing the rocks in the early 1960s when Prince Karim Aga Khan and a group of investors began shaping the area?s Porto Cervo resort. 

Stefania Stera got to know the construction sites of the luxury hotels Romazzino and Cala di Volpe, and saw how the famous Casa Bunker was built in the area. Designed in 1967 by the Italian architect Cini Boeri, the brutalist Casa Bunker was highly controversial at the time, but it also heralded the unconventional, eccentric and striking architecture of the area.

Now the main centre of Costa Smeralda, Porto Cervo is known as a luxury-yacht harbour, billionaires? playground, Europe?s most expensive and exclusive resort area, and one of the most luxurious resorts in the world.
When Stera?s clients, a couple for whom she had already designed a large home in Paris, approached her about a project in Porto Cervo, she was immediately interested. Eventually named ?La Grintosa? ? translated as gritty, feisty, bold and aggressive, a fighter ? the large castle-like residence follows the area?s eccentric tradition and, despite of its incongruous forms and shapes, somehow manages to belong to its 10,000 square-metre (107,640 sq.ft) plot. 

There was an existing house on the site, but it did not take full advantage of the location?s light, access to the ...