Exploring our first 50 years
When our company was founded, the notion of “well-being” was largely unknown; in 1975 in the Fiemme Valley, hardly anyone talked about it – that is, except for us, and we chose to include it in our articles of association:
“The Company’s purpose is to create, purchase and manage swimming pools, saunas, gyms, sports centres and similar activities that directly or indirectly support the harmonious care and development of the human body”.
The sound foresight of Ardelio Turri, founder of Starpool, has led us to become what we are today: a company pursuing an innovative wellness concept rooted in ancient traditions. We have come a long way over the last 50 years. We have evolved whilst always holding true to our vision: to strive to improve people’s quality of life through the harmonious development of body and mind. We have always endeavoured to fulfil the need to feel good and fit through an offer of excellence, capable of providing authentic well-being. We are also committed to spreading a proper Wellness culture, based on technological innovation, scientific research and a passion for design and attention to detail. We carry out this mission daily at Casa Starpool, our headquarters in the foothills of the Trentino Dolomites, with a team that currently counts over 130 people. Our idea of well-being always revolves around the individual, offering real benefits to body and mind. To create our Wellness solutions, we have drawn on the wealth of knowledge and expertise of spa traditions and reinterpreted it from a modern perspective. This heritage is enclosed in a formula: the alternation between heat, water and rest, which is today at the heart of every spa project. It is an ever-evolving approach that is reflected in the design and development of exclusive spaces dedicated to wellness, recovery, preventive care and self-care.
We started out 50 years ago, selling prefabricated swimming pools and saunas imported from Germany for hotellerie and private customers. We marked our first milestone in 1985: in that year, Paolo Turri – son of our founder Ardelio – took the reins of the company and had a stroke of genius. He began to integrate the idea of beauty treatments into the world of wellness, thus transforming Starpool into a company that would become renowned in the beauty sector. Thanks to our collaboration with Germaine De Capuccini and BioLine, we were able to market high-quality cosmetics and innovative technologies for the beauty sector, and this in turn allowed us to equip the beauty areas of spas and beauty centres, opening an array of new opportunities.
In 1988, we set up the Design Department, an in-house team dedicated to designing spas for our customers; it was a winning choice which, over the years, helped us move from a product-based to a design-based sales approach. By adopting a design-based approach, each product began to be integrated and contextualised within a space, serving a specific purpose based on each customer’s specific needs. Designing spaces before even creating products consolidated as our work method in the 2000s, and it is still our strength to this day: we have a clear vision of the final design from the early analysis stages, and nothing is left to chance. Over the same period, we also established our first international distribution agreements, with Lebanon and Greece, and made our first sale in Dubai: an important result that helped us understand how the foreign market worked. Over the course of 8 years, we established commercial relationships with 20 countries.
In 2002, the company’s governance transferred from Paolo Turri to his brother Riccardo, the current CEO. Within the same period, we consolidated our partnership with the Technogym Group, which represented an important opportunity for us. Indeed, it gave us the chance to look at wellness from a new perspective and to further strengthen our resolve to place people’s well-being at the centre of all our projects and to become a partner of choice for the wellness industry, not only through individual products but also and most importantly through projects and solutions tailored to their specific needs.
In 2007, we were the very first – and still are the only – company in the wellness industry to set up an in-house Research and Development Department. It was another winning choice, which allowed us to consolidate our position with products characterised by iconic design, recognised by the market for the high quality of the materials used and the level of technological innovation. A few years later, in 2010, came the first important signal of a product approach revolving around the well-being of the individual: a scientific study conducted with the support of the University of Brescia, in collaboration with Dr Alessandro Corsini – then sports physician for Inter Milan – and with a pool of spa doctors, aimed at defining the real benefits of our technologies and their correct use. That is how our sp.a_system came to be, the first and only scientific method for spa use.
In 2016, thanks to the intersection with neuroscience, Zerobody Dry Float emerged, a patented system capable of replicating the benefits of microgravity in psychophysical regeneration. In collaboration with neuroscientist Nicola De Pisapia, we developed the first Mindfulness programs focused on mental well-being, a concept that, up until that point, had been little explored or considered in the context of individual health. Since then, science has become our greatest ally, so much so that in 2021 we decided to set up an in-house Scientific Research Department, to validate the benefits of our technologies and define effective methods of use for a market that is increasingly attentive to preventive care. Innovations such as Zerobody Dry Float and our scientific approach transformed our company, opening it up to previously unexplored markets ranging from athletic recovery for professional sports to corporate wellness, physiotherapy, and longevity, interpreted as an evolved concept of well-being and prevention. In other words, from spa partner to all-round wellness partner.
In 2020, we inaugurated Casa Starpool. It was no longer just offices and production departments; it became a real competence centre that could be an inspiration for anyone operating in the wellness sector. Our premises currently include offices, hospitality areas for events, conference rooms, Design and R&D laboratories, technology areas and production departments open to the public. Our showrooms – gym, social spa, Longevity Spa, Recovery Lab and Recharge Room – not only inspire the over 1500 guests a year that come to visit us to learn about the latest wellness trends, but they provide spaces that each of us can use every day at work. We believe that to create well-being, we must first experience it: we are the primary keepers of our well-being and the only way to bring it to the world is by experiencing it every single day.