© 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Casa Nova SRL

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Restoring Eden

Nov 06; May 07; Sept 07; July 08; Sept 08; Feb 09; July 2010

Nov 06:

When we bought the property in 2003 both the land and the buildings were in need of a great deal of work.  The apple orchards had been long neglected and had ceased to produce.  The roof of the main farmhouse leaked in more places than we had buckets.  The land was so overgrown it had become all but impassable.

We have just completed the first phase of what will be a lengthy process of restoration and bringing the land slowly back into production.  We repaired the roof of the main farmhouse and made it habitable, pending its eventual restoration as and when funds allow.  We demolished a jumble of outbuildings that stood between the main farmhouse and its view.  Many a long hot day has been spent clearing overgrown tracks across the land and reclaiming the garden and vegetable plot.

The irrigation lake, essential to our plans for replanting, had disappeared to a muddy puddle amongst a tangle of trees: very 18th- century-picturesque but no practical use.  Three years on, it has been cleared, relined with clay and is full of water (and newts and frogs).

However, our biggest project here, to date, has been to complete the Garden House, a substantial stone-built house in a spectacular position on the terraced hillside above the main farmhouse.  Around it we are planting a garden for the senses: scented old roses, irises and peonies, aromatic herbs, fruit and vegetables: see Plant List.  See the Rentals section for more about the Garden House.  The plan is to use income from holiday rentals to subsidise the myriad projects we have for the land: first amongst them being to clear one of the old apple orchards and replant part with olives and part as mixed orchard.

May 07: As at May 2007, we are in the process of applying for “agriturismo” status in order to further this objective.  We have replanted the terraces closest to the main farmhouse with a mixed orchard and a variety of soft fruits, destined for the use of our guests, and once the holiday rental side of the business has completed its first season we’ll be able to start planning the next phase of investment in the farm.

Sept 07: We now have a little flock of free range chickens.

July 08: The lake is currently a muddy puddle after two years of near drought, whereas in May 06 it was over 4 meters deep.  Although this year has seen the return of the spring rains, this has been too little to remedy the situation.  We are in the midst of a long drawn out legal battle over a neighbouring lake, over which we had negotiated a right to buy at the time we bought Casa Nova.  The owner has sold it in breach of our right.  The situation is all the more galling as, being further down the hillside, it is brim-full of water.  We are learning the hard way about the intricacies and delays of the Italian legal system.

We are currently building a new swimming pool for the main farmhouse and planning the phased restoration of the main farmhouse itself.  If funds and the weather allow, we will start the process of replanting with olives this autumn.

Sept 08: The new pool is completed and is stunning but so far over budget that olive planting may have to wait a bit.  We’ll get some quotes and then decide.  Our remaining funds this year may need to go on installing cisterns and digging a well, since our own lake is now dry (and the lake we had a right to buy has been sold from under our noses, see above).  We are now officially an agriturismo: the bureaucracy involved included our having to get a certificate vouching for the fact we are not Mafiosi.  However, after the pool was already built, we were told that a new law has come in which means that an agriturismo must have a lifeguard for a pool over a certain depth (which the new one is).  We declined the suggestion that the builder simply pour concrete into the bottom to reduce the depth.  We’re hoping the law will be modified before next season (don’t they know you can drown just as easily in 3 inches of water?) On one day this summer we had visits from the polizia forestale (we’d been “denounced” for landscaping the earth that came out of the pool excavation - turns out the permissions we had to build the pool didn’t cover this) and the ufficio delle entrate (VAT inspectors) who arrived unannounced and asked question for 4 hours (such as “how many chickens do you have?” answer: we’ve never counted).  Just some of the realities of trying to do things by the book in a country where the rules are fiendishly complex and the powers that be start from the assumption that everyone is breaking them. On the up-side: this summer the vegetable garden has produced the best tomatoes yet (amongst much else); 8 eggs a day from the chickens; day after day of perfect weather whilst friends in England report day after day of rain... (For more pics see here)

Feb 09: We’ve decided to defer olive planting for this year, amidst competing priorities, and have invested instead in clearing the channels that collect rainwater from the hillside and carry it to the lake.  These had become completely choked with trees and brambles but are now cleared and lined with plastic covered with earth, and so instead of disappearing underground the water is now making it to the lake, which (as of this week, as a snowfall was melting and the ground is saturated) is refilling at a rate of 12 litres a minute.  Hurray!  Let’s hope it continues.  This month has been a mad dash to plant around the new pool whilst the ground is soft and damp and before things start into growth: formal planting close to the pool (with box and lavender hedges surrounding roses), an informal mix of drought-tolerant plants on the banks below (phlomis, rosemary, russian sage, myrtle, curry plant).  More to follow when my cuttings of various lavenders are ready for transplanting.  The chickens have been getting more adventurous and ranging further and further from their run when allowed out: they’ve been at the flower beds, scattering the mulches I’d just put down.  They also turn out to be rather fond of the cat food we put down for the various strays who’ve adopted us.  We had our first home-raised ducks and geese for Christmas dinner (after lengthy negotiations with the kids) but so far the chickens are sacrosanct.  As we now have 5 cockerels, we may need to review this policy soon.  The other project in hand at the moment is painting a “casettone” ceiling for the sitting room of the Garden House: trompe-l’oeil grisaille central panels and a border around these of Renaissance-style grotesques.  Check on the Work In Progress here.

July 2010:  We’ve completed a first phase of restoration on the main farmhouse (the roof was in too poor a state to wait any longer).  This has included a heating system that combines solar, a wood fired boiler (that uses logs, pellets or wood chip) and a gas boiler that kicks in only when those don’t suffice. The boiler room is an impressive sight - full of huge and complex bits of kit humming away to themselves, whose foibles and idiosyncracies we’ll need to learn. We’ve debated getting a wood chipper so that we can create wood chips for the boiler from our own wood supply. However, something big enough for our use looks to be a pretty major investment as well as more than a little terrifying.  We have also installed photovoltaic cells on the roof of the Garden House but now have an unexpected hold up before these can be connected to the grid - apparently ENEL has been swamped with applications and can’t keep up.  We’re collecting rainwater from the roof but will need to add some additional cisterns when we get to the final phase of work.  The work on the channels to the lake has certainly greatly improved the amount it collects, and it is now retaining enough to meet our irrigation needs, although it’s also clear that the clay layer within the basin of the lake must be compromised in some way and it loses rather more than it should.  Other projects this year have included adding a second chicken enclosure so that the growing numbers of chickens, ducks and geese can alternate runs.  A new challenge is that wolves have made it into this area, having been reintroduced into the Marche some years ago.  Neighbours on the opposite side of the valley have lost several sheep to them.  We’ve yet to see any evidence of them around us but it is presumably only a matter of time. This may well curtail plans for running goats or alpacas on parts of the land, as the tall fencing that would now be required would be both prohibitively expensive and ugly.

We plan to up-date this section as the restoration of the land and the main farmhouse progresses.  We are always interested to hear from others who have undertaken similar projects.