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Palazzo Envy

Fancy owning spectacular property in the Italian countryside? There have never been so many desirable options. Josh Spero begins our special in Castello di Reschio, Umbria

T

he desire of the rootless to find a home and then to provide homes for others is a familiar trait. Count Antonio Bolza, uprooted with his family from Hungary after the end of World War II, is the aristocratic exemplar of this, ultimately acquiring 2,000 acres on the Umbrian border with Tuscany and then building homes for others on his land.

These homes are not regulation villas for the Chiantishire set, a second mortgage to drain reduced net income and an object for dinner-party admiration (though they are worthy of admiration). Each home, matched to the footprint of an existing but ruined building, is built in partnership with the owner, combining their needs and wants with the craft and style of the Bolza family. It is a family business: the chief architect is Count Benedikt Bolza, Count Antonio’s son, and Benedikt’s vivacious wife, Donna Nencia, has painted the estate map and murals in some of the houses.

I stayed in Barco, a medieval keep and former summer residence of the Bishop of Todi, whose walls would once have contained the besieged locals as Guelphs and Ghibellines rampaged outside. Barco is approached through a low topiary garden, and behind wide French windows is a dining table with a view over a valley and acres of verdant Umbria.

What is most striking about Barco is the effortlessness of its elegance. Since the houses are joint efforts, I was not sure whether to compliment the taste of the Bolza family or of the family who own the house. The master bedroom is flanked by a sitting room in pale peach and a study, although I felt no need to study or even take phone calls from my office. The benefit of Reschio is precisely its splendid distance from daily life, yet with your own stamp on it. No owners have yet demanded a modernist cube, which would be a curious choice in a land of traditional stone, and Count Antonio looks slightly pained at the idea.

E ach house is privately owned — building and freehold on the land — so you are in someone else’s home. Some choose to rent theirs out, and there will be some rental villas in the future, but most are kept for the few weeks a year their owners can make it out there. A great shame, says Count Antonio, and experiencing the green and quiet and cool, I agree.

As I scanned the skyline, I saw some of the other houses on the estate, each separate enough for privacy and each clearly unique. This separate-but-togetherness creates a sense of community, even though families are resident at diverse times. Communities need a focal point, and the Osteria ensures that families can mix as they eat Chef Marco’s cooking — or their own, if they take up the offer of a cookery lesson. Apparently I’m a natural tortelloni-maker.

While the Osteria is a pleasant option, these homes — which range from the palatial San Paolo, fit for fourteen, to the remarkable Palazzo with its new tower — can be self-contained, with their own fully stocked kitchens (replenished as desired) and maids. In addition, chauffeurs and garages, local tax payments and rental services are also all taken care of. Returning after an afternoon’s exertions in the serene galleries of Siena to find dinner prepared by Chef Marco was the last surprise of my day.

Barco is one of the first houses you come to after a precipitous drive, but the twenty others which have been restored are scattered over the estate, only linked by rustic roads. I have never before felt so grateful for the resilience of a Land Rover as it bounced up and down heroically. But that is part of what makes Reschio so appealing: instead of levelling acres of forest to put down tarmac, nature is worked with, not against.

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ndeed, nature and the traditional modes of Umbrian living and crafts are threaded throughout the estate. My bathroom had a mosaic floor and evidence of careful carving was everywhere, combining local stones and resources. Wandering through the Palazzo, whose swimming pool is hidden from immediate view by a trick of the eye, I saw local craftsmen working on the marble mouldings. Since the houses are built on existing sites, there are often medieval bricks which can be reused, melding the past and present.

What Count Antonio is keenest on is the ease of being in Reschio: this is no holiday camp with mandatory enjoyment and hours forcibly devoted to activity (although there is a fine stable full of Spanish pure-bloods). Talking to the Bolzas makes this ease clear, because they see Reschio not as an impersonal estate for tycoons to hide away but rather more as a family retreat, for themselves as much as the homes’ owners. 

Castello di Reschio, Umbria
+39 075 844 362
info@reschio.com