Born under a good star. The Starhotels brand was born just before Christmas 1980, when Ferrucio Fabri launched a new hotel brand that his passion and commitment successfully positioned as a major player on Italy’s 4* hotel market. Starhotels grew stone by stone starting from the time when Ferrucio Fabri, at the head of a public construction firm, decided to manage the properties he helped rise up out of the ground. Five properties established the gestating brand: two hotels in Florence – the Tuscany opened in 1971, and then the Michelangelo in 1975 – and three hotels opened in Milan at the end of the 70s: the Tourist, the Splendido and the Rosa. With this base to build upon, Starhotels was officially launched in 1980, the beginning of a decade that would see the group actively weave its web in Italy. Rome in 1981, Turin and Venice in 1984, Genoa in 1989, Bergamo in 1990: the cities appear at regular intervals on the brand’s map and Bologna, Naples, Parma, Trieste and Saronno, near Milan’s convention center, followed. At the same time as its national expansion, Starhotelsalso allowed itself two incursions abroad in two strongholds of worldwide tourism: New York and Paris. Since 2002, The Michelangelo, a luxurious 5* near Rockefeller Center and Times Square, has flown the Italian banner. Then, in 2007, Starhotels took over the hotel Castille, a former Sofitel Demeure located near the maison Chanel and place Vendôme.Just a few weeks away from blowing out thirty candles, the group is at its prime, sitting on a collection of 21 fully-owned hotels plus a hotel under a management contract for total of 3,725 rooms. This Italian success story is in its second generation. While Ferrucio Fabri, the 85 year old patriarch, is still president, his daughter has been running...