In the 1950s and into the 1960s, Gina Lollobrigida was one of the planet’s premier screen sirens.

She was a bit older and a bit less voluptuous than the other hugely famous Italian actress of roughly the same period, Sophia Loren. But each of them could bring conversation to a halt by entering a room, and lure people to movies solely on their being featured in them.

So, it took me back in time today when the son of the owner of our hotel told me that building on the site … was the idea of Gina Lollobrigida.

I was getting help scanning some documents from Stefano, whose family runs the Grand Hotel Le Rocce, and I asked him about the history of the place.

It went back to the early 1970s, he said, and to a plan by Lollobrigida and her first husband, a Slovenian doctor. (Doesn’t it seem as if a lot of female actresses marry doctors?)

Anyway, they looked at this site, near Gaeta, a beachside resort popular for decades with successful Romans, and imagined a retreat. Perhaps like the one in Sicily where she now lives, at age 85.

However, she was about to divorce her husband, who had become her manager (and not done a bad job, given all the films she made during their marriage) … and the plan for a place here died out.

But, according to Stefano, his grandfather heard about the plan to do something with this parcel of cliff, and he soon came in and began his project.

He was “not an architect, not a builder … I don’t have the English for it … OK, a builder”, and gramps was the guy who built this array of buildings, gardens and patios with the idea of making it a hotel.

Forty years later, the place is going strong, with his son (Stefano’s father) now running it, and Stefano being one of several family members working here, and the guy who has the strongest grasp of English. (“Mostly from TV; really.”)

Family-run hotels are quite common in Italy, and I love the concept as well as the execution. The relationship between guest and hotelier seems more personal, more authentic. A large corporate parent does not get in the way of interactions at the front desk.

So, Grandfather, perhaps inspired by Gina Lollobrigida’s earlier interest in the site, designed it to have Greek and Russian architectural flourishes, as well as areas overtly Italian/beachside.

The rest is history. The family has added flourishes like the pool and spa, and does big business during the summer, and on weekends this time of year, with both Romans and foreigners as clientele, especially those from the colder north of Europe. (An amusing notion, that we came here to escape the UAE heat, not to anticipate it.)

I don’t know if Gina Lollobrigida actually slept here. I didn’t ask Stefano to clarify if she actually had something constructed … or just thought about it.

But it’s a nice story. And reflecting on Gina Lollobrigida, perhaps from Solomon and Sheba or Trapeze or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (above) … is never an unwelcome trip down memory lane.