Best of est | Italian Country Houses

Italy’s countryside rivals the best in the world; rolling green hills, vineyards, olive groves and historic architecture make for scenes straight out of a painting. We’ve featured a number of Italian country houses here on estliving.com and inside the pages of est magazine; it was a challenge to pick just five. 

Villa RA

MORQ

Nestled above an elevated ridge in one of the southernmost parts of Italy, this outwardly expressed home designed by MORQ beautifully captures the essence of Calabria. 

Imagined as a summer retreat for its owners of Italian lineage, the home sits weighted through its composition yet responsive in how it engages with the landscape. “The new dwelling aims to be part of the landscape as a whole,” MORQ co-director Emiliano Roia says, “and instead of looking to formally mimic the landscape, the project draws from the tradition of the Italian villa, and the material tones of the land it sits on.”

Villa RA’s material palette is informed by the earth it perches on. “The limited palette of materials reveals the simple geometry of the building,” Emiliano says, “and creates a visual and tactile continuity between landscape and architecture, where hues change during the day, responding to sun and land, revealing movement through shadows and ever-changing material nuances.”

Villa RA originally appeared in est magazine issue 42 (pp. 52-67).

Architects Ludovica and Roberto Palomba’s Puglia Home

Palomba Serafini

This gloriously rustic Puglia building is the home of Ludovica and Roberto Palomba, founders of Milan-based architecture firm Palomba Serafini Associati.

Originally constructed in the 1600s as an oil mill, the building had long since been abandoned and fallen into disrepair by the time the Palombas came across it. But it was the building’s classic proportions – six metre ceilings and wide communal spaces framed by columns – that caught the couple’s eye. 

Rather than taking the typical renovation tactics of modernising and adding, Roberto and Ludovica chose to keep the structure as authentic as possible. Instead of adding new walls to break up the space, the remodel draws on floors of local stone and whitewashed walls to create consistency throughout the home without boxing it off, while light has been introduced through opening up the back of the building and peppering new skylights throughout the living areas.

Ludovica and Roberto Palomba’s home originally appeared in est magazine issue 27 (pp. 40-52).

Villa Cardo

Studio Andrew Trotter

Studio Andrew Trotter’s Villa Cardo absorbs the rich landscape of Puglia as a love letter to the region and its past. 

The three-bedroom home occupies a site filled with olive and almond trees. While anchored to the landscape through thick and weighted architectural elements, the geometric open staircase leads to an open roof terrace, with views stretching out to the ocean. “The house sits in the countryside,” Andrew says, “so it was important for it to feel relaxed and humble and that the whole house can be opened up, so you feel connected with the nature that surrounds.”

“We always try to source everything as close to the site as possible,” Andrew says. “The Tufo (sandstone) walls are from two kilometres away, the windows are made locally and  the limestone flooring is local too. A building needs to fit the context that it is in and if you use local materials, then half of the work is done for you.”

Villa Cardo originally appeared in est magazine issue 43 (pp. 220 – 237).