HOUSE OF THE FALCON

On his mother's bucolic estate north of Rome, Filippo Chia transforms an abandoned farmhouse and tower into his own striking retreat.

- MARELLA CARACCIOLO CHIA

The story of Torre del Falco-the Tower of the Falcon-begins in Italy's hilly Tuscia region north of Rome. There, on the outskirts of the town of Ronciglione, Paola Igliori returned some years ago to her family's estate, Villa Lina, a sprawling and picturesque property surrounded by the Cimini, a range of volcanic mountains.

Igliori, a writer and filmmaker who had been living in New York City, inherited a 1920s villa, built on the remains of one erected more than two centuries earlier; an 18thcentury botanical garden; and a symbolic landscape created in the 1930s by the noted architect Raffaele de Vico. She now lives there full-time and has spent years transforming the estate into a country retreat, where she welcomes travelers interested in discovering the treasures of the region.

But while she restored and decorated most of the buildings on the property, she did leave one structure untouched: Torre del Falco, a crumbling 19th-century farmhouse built around an ancient tower. That is, until it became the dream project of her son, Filippo Chia (who is my stepson).