The history of Pugnochiuso begins in the ‘60s when the then ENI President, Enrico Mattei, was particularly impressed by the beauty of the municipal territory. The story has it that one sunny morning back in 1959, the President was flying with his private plane over the Vieste coast and was spellbound by its beauty. He asked the pilot to fly over the coast repeatedly. Of Pugnochiuso, Mattei exclaimed "This place is paradise!".
Back in Rome, he thought back to the place with enthusiasm: he had conceived the idea of realizing a tourist facility, so he offered the Municipality, which owned a considerable part of the territory of the Pugnochiuso area, an amount of money which took into account the features of the land, such as consistency and cultivations, and the amounts of money which were necessary to clear the occupied land and to cover the improvements carried out by the occupiers.
The then administrators, by a council deed dated 26 March 1962, set by majority the sale price at Lire 250.000 per hectare, equal to 25 Lire per square metre.
That's how Pugnochiuso, ENI Holiday Centre, was born: thanks to the State-owned Company its image was quickly known all around the world and the tourist industry of Gargano and Vieste soon started out. At those times the Vieste-Mattinata provincial coast road was under construction: it comprised a fork that led from Campi to Pugnochiuso.
Part of the acquired land, of about 2.400 hectares in total, was used to realize a game preserve, and the remaining part was used for tourist purposes: two hotel facilities were built - Hotel del Faro and Hotel degli Ulivi; residential hotels, conference halls and shopping facilities: La Piramide.
The complex was initially managed by the owning Authority but towards the end of the ‘60s it was outsourced.
The lack of maintenance of the various existing facilities led to the inglorious decline of Pugnochiuso.
