We made the decision to buy this old villa in July of 2020. It is right beside our house in Brallo, it was always there but we had never really paid attention to it. Another old abandoned house. Yawn. But then we realized that we didn’t really have a parking space at Rifugio Leonetti…and we started looking at this house. All it’s land. All the potential. And thought about our retirement house. Maybe creating a large space for our boys and friends to come visit. And with the extra room then we could AirB&B for additional income – not a have to but an option. I really wanted a home where our guests could come and have their own areas to relax and we could enjoy each other’s company. Without being on top of each other.
And so it began…
The Exterior
Before above and after below
Above: Before – we knew we wanted to take the plaster off the beautiful old stones and tear down those ugly brick pillars. We will take down the continual balcony and make 4 individual balconies. Every guest will have their own bathroom, woodstove and balcony.
We started to take the plaster off but were told that we had to get permission. You can't do anything to the outside of your house without getting permission from the village / town. We also needed a surveyor to get a clear idea of the property borders as we want to put up a fence pronto - 1. we don't want neighbors wandering in or watching us when we are in the swimming pool 2. we don't babies or animals wandering in and drowning and 3. Lula needs a fence and 4. we just want privacy. With the work that we want to do it made more sense to just hire an architect who can do the surveyor work and submit the plans for the pool, windows, fence to the town/village - in other words killing a few birds with one architect stone.
The balcony and pillars are down and the plaster is off.
Hydrangea’s dug up and put into pots temporarily until we can find permanent home for them. Where that chair is – is where the pool will be.
June 2021
I don’t have any before photos of this space because it was just a crappy, dirty, grassy trail leading down to Franco & Rosanna’s house
Brallo, AT, Italy | 11 & 12 September 2022
Above before: the back entrance across the cortile from Rifugio Leonetti
Below after: semi-complete with hydrangeas and a Golden lab
June 2021 and complete July 2024
The Bedrooms
Four. Just like this. Mint green for days. Huge and ugly. We took down all the plaster, pointed the stones, added bathrooms to each room, new flooring, converted the windows into french doors, added wood stoves and balconies.
Below the after: each stone has been touched five time… not exaggerating. The contractor ran off with our money, wasn’t paying his workers but thankfully through him we got Vincenzo who is a master craftsman and pointed (exposed all the stone and wooden beams) Each room has double occupancy, a bathroom, hand crafted stone and steel balcony and wood stove.
Everything is difficult. We talked to several local window makers who ended up never following through. Moaning about not having work but not really wanting to work. We bought nine standard french doors and 10 standard windows from a Home Depot like store. We ended up buying all of our arched door and 3 ginormous living room custom windows from Romania (only communicating via WhatsApp (yikes), they arrived safely and beautifully – a little lighter than we had wanted but other than that, perfect.
It was a stable that someone converted into a taverna or cantina. It will be our kitchen and great room. I love the stone and domed ceilings. We are going to create a doorway, where the window is, at the end that will lead to the formal living room and large stone fireplace. You can glimpse a bit of a horrible brick bar thing (left/top). It had a lovely large piece of wood as the counter, which we will re-purpose. There is a carrara marble sink (not pictured) on the back wall which we will keep and have a carrara marble island created. Right french doors to the pool and garden. Left – arched hallway, powder room and arched doorway to pizza oven.
Above the before | below the after
Above before. Horrible wood paneling and vinyl floors – like what is a vinyl floor and the glue they used is toxic and disgusting.
Gorgeous domed ceiling and a double fireplace (not pictured) that is shared with the foyer. Below after July 2024
The Arched Corridor
The original space was a bathroom and a kitchen. Yes, you had to walk through the kitchen to get to the only bathroom. This ginormous house but let’s stuff the bathroom and kitchen into this tiny cramped hallway. Joe busted out the bathroom wall that leads to the cantina/cucina. We created a corridor from the study/foyer to the cantina/cucina and added a new half bath/ powder room (only bathroom on the ground floor). We pulled the plaster off, pointed the walls, added accent tiles, installed new windows and added the powder room | July 2024
The Pool
We decided to focus on the garden and pool first because we already had Rifugio Leonetti completed and could use the pool right away.
The pool was never compromiseable. I have wanted one since I was a little girl. And I can’t imagine a perfect house, not at the beach, without a pool.
So, after getting approval from the village to put in a pool, via our architect, I quit my job and Avalon said: you’re unemployeed and the world is on fire. Is putting in a pool smart?
No, but the train had left the station. And, the last thing Kathy said to me was: Go back and make that pool. A dying woman’s wish. And a lifelong dream.
Additional complications were that I had to fire our contractor, long covid but he was flaky before he had covid, and find a different pool company. It was a long and expensive process. And then we found out we couldn’t use our water to fill it up. Drought. So we found a guy named Luigi to bring in five truck loads of water. The day that the stones on the pool deck were completed we closed it for the winter.
Salt water | 10 x 4 meters
July – October 2022
The Villa garden is complete. Just need to add the row of grapevines at the end. When I am here, I get up and do yoga poolside – swim laps then go check my vegatables (end of garden behind the adirondaks)and flower garden – appreciate the long row of lavender with bouncing butterflies and honey bees (I need some hives) – it’s pretty wonderful.
Brallo, Serole, Asti
July 2023
Before – above – after below
October 2024
October 2024
The house is very long and had only a single stone staircase at one end. When we started this project we knew we would want to add another staircase but would need to punch a hole in between the, at the time, very unfinished end rooms. When we were considering the types of staircases it became obvious that we didn’t want to add yet another type of wood that wouldn’t match the Romanian windows or laminate floor. I saw some industrial metal inside stairs and that was the inspiration. We also had challenges because of the metal ceiling beams and rolling ceiling curve. We had the gate guys come out and take a look and they came up with the “C” shape stairs. They cross one of the large windows but that’s ok bc it is just a big ol’ mess of unkempt buildings behind us.
The living room was just an open stall with some timbers. We had to go through crazy overkill engineering – you could park a semi turck on this floor, add the windows, walls pointed, flooring and three sided fireplace and it is lovely.
