An Elite Playground Becomes Less So

By SETH SHERWOOD

WHEN Patrick Behr heard that Sardinia’s famously decadent Billionaire nightclub would be hosting its annual opening gala during the last weekend in June, he decided it would be the perfect occasion to discover the night life in the island’s chic northeast corner, better known as the Costa Smeralda, or Emerald Coast.

So Mr. Behr, a world traveler who lives in Frankfurt, booked a table and was soon shooting off to the Mediterranean resort with a friend in tow.

“We just want to party tonight and tomorrow night!” he shouted over the club’s loud hip-hop. The Costa Smeralda attracted him, he said, because he’d heard it was “very luxurious, very pretty, very extraordinary.”

Around him, Billionaire was living up to its bombastic name. Italian television stars and soccer gods strode over Oriental carpets to chat with European TV crews. The club’s white-haired owner, Flavio Briatore, reclined like a sultan amid bottles from the club’s Champagne list, which featured a methuselah (a mere six liters) of Cristal for 35,000 euros. Periodically Mr. Briatore, a 50-something Formula One mogul, arose to greet club visitors, who last year included Denzel Washington, Lenny Kravitz and Bruce Willis.

Absorbing the scene, Mr. Behr, 33, looked entirely within his element. But for two things: Mr. Behr is neither a platinum-selling musician nor a seven-figure C.E.O. but a humble academic, an assistant professor of finance. And he arrived in Sardinia not by Gulfstream jet but on a small airline called Air Italy that serves the recently expanded airport in the nearby town of Olbia.

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