8 bedrooms villa, 417 m²

Vernio, Prato (province)

VERNIO (Upper Appennino Pratese) almost 800 meters above sea level
I said painter, not decorator, and the difference is far from insignificant.
Here we are talking, if not of an artist, of a restoration professional with a great hand and a remarkable taste for beauty.
He is Angelo (a fictitious name for obvious reasons but a real person in flesh and bone and a bit of belly fat), by trade he is a bricklayer. And here too there is a big difference between a normal bricklayer and a bricklayer for restorations. When then the restorations of which this trade deals are those in the most important historical buildings of Tuscany and further throughout Italy, then things change a lot.
Because it’s strange: while a painting artist is called a painter, an artist of masonry doesn’t have a name.
But it’s the same, because Angelo is good both as a painter and as a master bricklayer.
And you can see!
That is, this house is crazy. It’s all decorated, it’s all painted, it’s all finished with very strange details and objects.
It goes from the coffered ceiling of the living room, hand-decorated and finished with the terracotta pedestals that were used to support jars during the cooking process, to the columns with stone capitals rediscovered on site and enhanced, and let’s not forget the Victorian wrought iron staircase from a disused factory or the helical stone staircase with a central support. Then stuccos, paintings, sculptures... think that in the secret room he is preparing others that will find placement in one of the many rooms!
Oh, I haven’t told you that this house also has a secret room! The owner uses it as a laboratory for his most artistic works!
When we do the visit the game will be just this: you will have to find it and discover how you access it!
I’ll tell you right away that the mechanism is ancient, original in wood, and it’s like “Indiana Jones”: let’s see if you find it!

But let’s go back to the house.
Three large centuries-old beeches separate the flat garden of the entrance from the two buildings (yes, there are two, I hadn’t told you) from the sloping garden that separates the complex from the dirt road below, but still sufficiently far and decidedly little frequented not to be a problem,
on the contrary: a car or a horse passing by is just company... I’m talking about the horse because right now one is passing by... the sound of hooves getting further and further away is like music......

The connecting road with the road below leads you to the first of the two houses, the main house. And you can see.

The main house: Square plan, central staircase, a living room on the left and two rooms, a small living room and a kitchen with a very large cooking fireplace on the right. Stone staircase with two arches, door upstairs. In the mezzanine landing there is a comfortable first bathroom. Upstairs there are three bedrooms with stuccos and fake marbles. Angelo was explaining to me how to make marble with plaster stucco, it was interesting but I would never manage it, and a spectacular bathroom with columns and frescoes. The staircase goes up again, always a bathroom on the mezzanine floor, and upstairs three large attic bedrooms, also decorated and with a ceiling whose roofs form a design that looks like the Duomo of Florence or the Juventus flag...
Could the secret room be here? Perhaps it’s right behind the stuccos on the ground floor? Where is the button that activates the door mechanism? Who knows...

The house over there:
It’s smaller, it has a first area that today is unmissable, not because it’s ugly but because it’s too full of antique objects that Angelo has collected around villas and farmhouses saving them from the scrap heap... From there a kitchen room always with stove fireplace, the wrought iron staircase that leads to the first mansard floor where you find two super bedrooms with exposed beams and to the porch with ancient columns and terracotta parapet and the famous helical stone staircase that leads to a wonderful underground bathroom.
And the secret room? Well I haven’t seen it yet...

But how can I tell you, here the details are indescribable, whether because they are too particular, whether because there are too many numerically to be able to describe: so, look at the photos, it’s better!

Oh, I forgot, there’s some garden, some woodland and near the house, underground, there’s a structure to be consolidated that’s a cistern for water! Once fixed it will be fantastic!

Look, here every object is history: here you can take a bath in a marble tub that comes from a Tuscan thermal bath or cut onions on bricks on which Spanish troops probably walked during the Sack of Prato in 1512 and so much more..

But... the secret room? Before I was bluffing, I found it, or rather, I found its absence. I said “hey but here’s a room missing”. Angelo then complimented me... because I hadn’t told him that there was a secret room, it was more difficult to notice it!
Now,
See if you find it too :-)

The house today is not usable because it needs to be finished. It’s not much missing. If you want Angelo will finish it for you.

100% human text by Lucie Brabcova
100% real photos by my Massi

The information, images and floor plans provided are for indicative purposes only and do not constitute binding or contractual elements.
The geolocation of the property on Google Maps may be inaccurate.
All rights reserved.
ENERGY CLASS: G 273.92 kWh/m3 a