KINVARA COMMUNICATIONS |
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Tuscan Transformation This is a story that begins on the back of a motorcycle. Italian Giorgio Miani prefers to scour the Tuscan countryside this way. His wife, Ilaria, says he “has a mania of riding bikes.” Camera in tow, Giorgio drives the winding back roads, looking for abandoned dwellings left in ruin. This is how the Mianis found Casellacce, a twice-deserted farmhouse and stable vacant since the late 1950s. Today, it has been transformed into a two-story Contemporary Italian villa. The couple bought Casellacce six years ago. The house, located on a hillside in Val d’Orcia, a valley south of Siena, was in such disrepair that the support walls were nearly all that remained. However, the homeowners saw potential in the property, which once was desired for its proximity to the medieval road connecting Rome to France. In a year’s time, the residence was brought back to life and now includes eight bedrooms and eight baths, a living room converted from a stable, and a spacious kitchen. A verdant landscape with a negative-edge pool, a spa, and an outdoor dining space beckon. Beyond lie wheat fields, grazing sheep and an extinct volcano. As in many traditional Tuscan homes, floors downstairs are hand-shaped cotto brick; upstairs, whitewashed knotted oak is underfoot. Walls are covered in a light lime-wash finish, revealing the plaster’s texture underneath. In the stairway, original window frames were kept intact as decorative cutouts. Hand-cut wood beams detail ceilings upstairs and in the kitchen. “We took old beams and old things, so as not to seem new,” Ilaria Miani points out. She adds: “This home is interesting because it’s all redone and could be reinterpreted.” Miani, an interior and furniture designer with a studio in Rome, took charge of the decor, which was completed in a mere 20 days. She mixed simple Tuscan elements with bright colors and functional furnishings to create a fresh, modern, country-chic look. Rooms are filled with what she calls “surprises of color.” In one bedroom closet, for example, the walls are painted in cream and raspberry-red stripes. Red and purple sectionals form two conversation groups in the living room, while a worktable in the kitchen has chairs painted in pink or cream. Most of the villa’s walls are sparsely decorated, and purposely so. The designer wanted the windows to create artwork for the walls by framing the “unspoiled and preserved” views outside. Outdoors, the homeowners kept as much of the property’s existing vegetation as possible, which was fairly sparse except for a cypress tree and a few bushes. They added a vegetable and herb garden and a grapevine-covered pergola that shades an alfresco dining area. Patio floors are topped with stones salvaged from a nearby town square. Filled with elements from days gone by, Casellacce is a home rich in history. Miani says that retaining its historical flair was important to her and her husband during the restoration process. “I always say you have to feel what I call the genius loci [Latin for the original inhabitants of a place],” she explains. “You have to discover the story of the house and follow it.”
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