History of the house

Until we bought the house, it has always been in the posession of the family that built it. We bought the house from Domenico Mei and his sister Katerina. Domenico and his wife Paola have since become friends. Domenico has promised to write us a history of the house and his family’s time in it. In the meantime, we are slowly gathering snippets of information from him.

Construction

The date of construction is a little unclear, but is likely something between 1860 and 1880. The house was built in three sections over a few years and this is easy to see from the front of the house. First the middle section was built, then the section to the left with the garage and finally the section to the right and the outbuilding.

Time as an inn

Domenico’s ancestors came down from Ruota and built the house as an inn which they called “Locanda La Pace” (Peace Inn). It was probably named as such because the Italian wars of unification had recently ended.

What is now our garage was the stables to house the horses of the guests. What we now call the stables was for cows. The rest of the ground floor was given over to storage. The business part of the inn was on the first floor which had a kitchen, a restaurant, a bar and three guest rooms.

The family lived on the second floor. This accounts for the decent height of the rooms on the top floor (most farm houses have much lower ceilings and tiny windows as the top floor would be for storing produce).

This plan, hand drawn by Domenico, shows the layout of the first floor during the time the house was an inn.

Our dining area was the restaurant and was separate from the kitchen. The room that is now Martin’s bedroom was the bar with a doorway directly into it from the restaurant.

Conversion to family home

At some point around 1930, the inn closed and the house was converted to a family home. Parts of the ground floor were converted to living space providing a kitchen, a living room and (for the first time) a WC.

Domenico’s plan shows the layout of the ground floor following that change.

You can see that, at that point, the cantina was still connected directly to the ice house.

On the first floor, the restaurant and bar were converted to bedrooms.

Improvements in the 1970s

Domenico’s grandfather was a geometra and made the following improvements:

The open plan kitchen / pranzo was created along with it’s indoor barbecue
The ground floor was changed to its current layout
The scannafosso was constructed, separating the ice house from the cantina
The covered outdoor terrace was constructed with pizza oven and barbecue
The window onto the garden from the small guest room on the first floor was closed up and a new window was opened to the side

Seismic improvements made in 1999

Strengthening of the roof by means of a reinforced concrete screed
Installation of anchor chains on the first and second floor floors

Changes we made in 2023

Converted the existing back door to a window
Created a new back door by opening the closed arch to the pizzeria
Added steel beams to support two floors (and improve seismic characteristics)
Converted the large attic to a living room
Moved the first floor bathroom
Created a laundry room where the first floor bathroom had previously been
Enlarged the ground floor bathroom

Things we don’t know yet

When the various bathrooms were added
What the original arch was used for and when it was closed
What other evidence of change seen the the facade relates to