It had always been the lakes in the north, with their proximity to Milan, or the Amalfi Coast in the west, with its sheer cliffs and photogenic hilltop towns, to which the international jet-set would flock come summer. Then, about a decade or so ago, the rich and famous suddenly began venturing further down the Apennine Peninsula, as far south and as far east as it was possible to go. To the very tip of the stiletto.

It started with Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, who chose to get married in Puglia in 2012. Within a few years, it seemed like everyone you spoke to was either planning, or planning on planning, a trip to the heel of Italy’s boot. Michael Bublé and Richard Branson took their families there, as did Victoria and David – the Beckhams visited en masse in 2019, and again in 2020, as soon as Covid-19 travel corridors allowed them to do so. In August 2021, Madonna posted a video on Instagram of her private jet touching down in Puglia ahead of her 63rd birthday celebrations – four years after she’d chosen the same location to celebrate her 59th.

If you’re wondering what happened in Puglia a decade or so ago, and why the region suddenly started attracting celebrities like moths to a flame, then you can look to Aldo Melpignano, and the opening of one hotel in particular.

Some background. In the 1970s, Melpignano’s parents purchased a ramshackle Puglian farmhouse in an idyllic location a few hundred metres from Adriatic shoreline. The family spent two decades holidaying in the rundown villa before, in the late 1990s, Melpignano’s mother decided to convert the property into a luxury resort in the manner of the castles-turned-hotels she’d seen transformed in Scotland. The estate became Masseria San Domenico, Puglia’s first ‘Leading Hotel of the World’, and the flagship of what developed into the SD Hotels group. Though it would be another refuge that really put Puglia on the map.

Melpignano, meanwhile, was busy graduating with a finance degree from London’s Cass Business School, after which he studied for an MBA at Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton Business School. He worked at Credit Suisse, briefly, before joining Ian Schrager’s Morgans Hotels (the group behind The Sanderson in London). By the time Melpignano returned to Italy, his family had opened two more hotels.

When the business acquired a plot of land for a third, Melpignano persuaded his father to let him create something altogether different. Whereas the other hotels in the SD portfolio had converted centuries-old properties into contemporary boltholes, mainly aimed at couples, Melpignano wanted to create an entire medieval village from scratch. He approached Pino Brescia, a local architect and set designer, and laid out his vision.

It took Melpignano and Brescia 10 years and around £130 million to create Borgo Egnazia, the 40-acre, mock Puglian estate where Timberlake and Biel got married; Madonna celebrated her 59th and 63rd birthdays; and the Beckhams checked in on back-to-back occasions. If you looking for what put Puglia on the 21st-century tourist map, look to Borgo Egnazia.

The drive from Bari airport to the resort takes less than 90 minutes, during which you’ll pass some pretty desolate-looking countryside and plenty of doggedly unpretty towns. The resort springs out of nowhere. A warren of winding lanes snakes its way through sun-scorched olive groves until, all of a sudden, you pull up in the middle of a film set.

For what Melpignano and Brescia have achieved, £130 million seems cheap. What they’ve done is raise an entire village in a romanticised vision of what, perhaps, traditional Puglian life may have looked like a few hundred years ago. To do so, they consulted extensive historical records, ancient architectural plans and early photographic evidence of neighbouring towns to reproduce an ancient hamlet of narrow alleys and white-stone villas. There’s a central piazza, Arabian-style arches, wells, fountains, chimneys and a church with its own bell tower. ‘Borgo’ is Italian for ‘village’. ‘Egnazia’ the name of a nearby Greco-Roman archaeological park.

This is no tawdry, Epcot-esque reproduction. By using traditional building techniques and constructing out of local calcar limestone and tuff – that soft, blonde, porous rock beloved by the Ancient Greeks and Romans – Melpignano and Brescia have created something that feels authentic, if highly idealised. You’d certainly never guess that the entire village was only a decade old.

On check-in, you’ll be given a map to help navigate Borgo Egnazia’s labyrinth of alleyways and plazas. You’ll need it. The resort comprises three main areas: the central courtyard and main building, which houses 63 bedrooms; the old hamlet, where a collection of townhouses provides 92 bedrooms; and an exclusive enclave of 28 private villas at the edge of the estate. The village square hosts regular events. An in-room bulletin will tell you what’s on.

As well as the aforementioned ancient Roman settlement, local attractions include the UNESCO-protected village of Alberobello, the baroque architecture of Lecce, and the much-Instagrammed seaside town of Polignano a Mare. But, truthfully, and maybe this explains the celebrity appeal, you needn’t really venture outside of Borgo Egnazia.

Nestled among the nooks and crannies are four swimming pools, five restaurants – stretching from the Michelin-starred to a beach-side fish shack – three bars, an insanely beautiful spa and a yoga studio. You can rent bikes, sign up for cookery classes, take a shuttle bus to the hotel’s two beach clubs or arrange as many rounds of golf as you like at the San Domenico golf course.

Then there’s people watching. And, at Borgo Egnazia, you never know who you might spot.

Double rooms from €329 per night in low season and from €899 per night in peak season, based on two adults sharing on a B&B basis, borgoegnazia.com

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