WILD AT HEART

Actress Isabella Rossellini and architect Pietro Cicognani have created a highly original rural home that ignores convention

- JULIET BENNING

Home invasions by animals are a common occurrence for Isabella Rossellini, from bats and raccoons to her own heritage breeds. ‘The sheep have two acres but I sometimes let them graze in the piazza and they like to stampede into the house,’ she says. The ‘piazza’ the model and actress-turned-farmer refers to is the grassy square at the centre of her three-barn dwelling in Bellport, Long Island, which she restored alongside her great friend, the architect Pietro Cicognani.

Isabella’s home is among 18 of Pietro’s projects featured in his new book, Pietro Cicognani Architecture and Design. The pair met more than 25 years ago through mutual friends and when Isabella hired him to renovate her dilapidated barn, a beautiful working relationship blossomed. ‘Creatively, we get on very well and both make daring choices,’ Pietro says.