Fenella found an interesting old farmhouse online – quite different from all the other properties we had been to see. The marketing pictures looked charming, it was within our budget and it even had a swimming pool. It was about 20 minutes drive from Lucca, but not up into the hills to the north (an area we had already rejected). We thought it would be interesting to see what our budget could get us in a rural setting. So, after a drive by and a quick explore of the garden, we booked a viewing.
On 10 September we turned up at the house to meet the agent Martina and the owner Domenico.
Domenico guided us round the house and we could feel how emotional it was for him. It had been his grandparents’ home and he had spent many summers there as a child. Later his parents lived there and, since his parents had died, he and his sister had kept the house and used it for family gatherings and holidays. Now their children were grown up and the house was getting less and less use. Sadly for them, it was time to sell.
The house is big – much bigger than any property we had envisaged buying. While our heads told us it was too big and much more of a project than we had in mind, our hearts were telling us something quite different. We found ourselves feeling very much at home and the house certainly seemed water tight and habitable. We could see ourselves moving in and getting settled before having to undertake any serious renovation or projects.
The front door opens onto a couple of living rooms on the ground floor, but the business end of the house is on the first and second floor. There we found a sizeable kitchen / living room, about six usable bedrooms and two bathrooms (both in need of updating). There are also a couple of garages and a bunch of storage rooms full of junk. A couple of these could easily be converted to give even more living space and one of those would make a great extension to the kitchen with views across the valley to the hillside town on the other side. In total, the house is about 400 square meters (that’s about 4,000 square feet).
Domenico is an engineer and knew the bones of the house intimately. He wanted to show us everything and I think he could tell how much we were warming to the place. He told us he’d be leaving most of the furniture (and probably the junk too) and made a special plea that we keep the kitchen table that generations of his family had eaten at. We were, of course, happy to agree.
The garden was also very large – rising behind the house in terraces. The pool was a wreck, but at least the house would come with permission for one in place. The final terrace has a football pitch made by Domenico’s father for the grandchildren with a stream running along the boundary. The garden is about 3,100 square meters in total (that’s about 3/4 of an acre).
Massive, daunting, exciting, with all kinds of possibilities. We were smitten.