It's early fall in northern Italy, and designer Paolo Castellarin and his husband, Didier Bonnin, an executive at a French luxury brand, have just set the table for lunch. We're sitting under the terra-cottatiled roof of what several hundred years ago would have been an outdoor kitchen, one of numerous stone-walled buildings in the complex making up their weekend home in the hills near Piacenza. It's that sweet spot in the season when a daytime breeze still warms the skin.
As Castellarin doles out stuffed pasta cooked in butter and sage onto illustrated Richard Ginori plates, he explains that long ago this house was a thriving agricultural center. He learned that it was constructed in 1182 as a casaforte a fortified mansion on the ruins of a Roman fort. In the intervening centuries, it had turns as a convent and a partisan stronghold during the Second World War. A previous owner, some decades ago, had even unearthed neolithic pots and a millennia-old graveyard, the mummified remnants of which now reside in a nearby archaeological museum. More recently, it was the hidden love nest of a prominent local businessman, who would escape here for weekends with his mistress and also hold illicit parties undetected by his family.
This story is from the Winter 2024 edition of Elle Decor US.
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This story is from the Winter 2024 edition of Elle Decor US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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