At eight a.m. on Sunday morning, Il Pellicano was crickets. On the grass tennis court, the pros rallied with one another. In the gym, little boxes of water began to sweat. All around this verdant peninsula on Italy’s Tuscan coast, the swifts chirped ecstatically, as if broadcasting the news: Breakfast cakes are warm! Checkout’s at noon!

But the hotel’s guests could not be roused. The previous evening, Marie-Louise Sciò had a party: dinner and dancing to celebrate the Pelli’s 60th anniversary. There was a buffet straight out of the Salvador Dalí cookbook—green peas suspended in gelatin, towers of artfully draped prosciutto, and a pyramid of tiny clams, which managed to retain their brine.