THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND
verything begins one morning in 1966. Jean Castel, the king of Parisian nightlife and his fisherman friend embark on a boat to visit the Lavezzi Islands, an archipelago of 23 islands lost between Corsica and Sardinia. Seduced by the few heavenly pebbles thrown on the blue backgrounds of the Mediterranean, he immediately decided to buy Cavallo, the largest of the islands, for two or three million francs, and offers the rest to the town hall of Bonifacio. In return, he obtained permission to build his new kingdom on the still virgin, 112 hectares. His idea? To make Cavallo a kind of summer extension of his club on rue Princesse where, since the end of the 50s,”, says journalist Delphine Leoni. He builds stone sheep barns with roofs made of cedar tiles. There is no electricity. The water is brought by boat with a little to eat and a lot to drink. Castel has convinced his friends to join him and to build a house in his new Garden of Eden. He is planning about fifty mansions. As well as a hotel, the Hotel des Pêcheurs, which is still the only one on the island today.
