LOVE LETTER TO VALUBERTI

We first saw Valuberti, a small borgo (hamlet) 16 kilometers outside Castiglion Fiorentino, Provincia d’Arezzo, Regione Toscana, 25 years ago.  I had wanted to do something special for my 50th birthday, and spending the month of August in Tuscany was my idea of perfect.  We were living in San Francisco at the time, and a column in the San Francisco Sunday Chronicle called “Follow the Reader” raved about Alda Fantina’s house at Valuberti.  Inquiries were faxed (it was 1997).  It was available, and the rest is history.

Every year thereafter, when deciding where to vacation, we just kept going back to Valuberti, never wanting to return to our American lives or livelihoods.  When a house became available, we jumped on it, and on June 4, 2001, we bought a small, abandoned house next to Alda’s.  It had no plumbing, the suggestion of an electrical system, a ground floor formerly occupied by turkeys and rabbits, and an upper floor full of pigeon droppings—veritable stalagmites of pigeon poop.  My husband, the architect-optimist, thought he could make it habitable, and we began an 18-month renovation from the States.  We started with a well, moved on to replacing the stone roof and rotted beams, installing a steel cord around the perimeter to meet seismic code requirements, laying a brick floor downstairs and a chestnut floor upstairs, choosing fixtures and tiling two baths, and putting in the nicest kitchen I’ve ever called my own.  The house was finished in October of 2003 and had a siren call loud enough to travel across the Mediterranean, over the Atlantic, and then cross-continental to the West Coast.  It was irresistible.  We decided to retire early and ex-pat outta Dodge.

We moved into our house with our cockatiel Gaston, elderly cat Aldo Kitty, orchid collection, and San Francisco rose (all with veterinarian certificates and USDA permits) on June 2, 2004.  We christened the house La Casa della Luna Piena, because there was a full moon when we bought it and a full moon when we moved into it.  

There were some setbacks in paradise.  The neighbor’s dog entered the house and killed Gaston before our container with his cage arrived.  My father, who was diagnosed with third stage lung cancer in August of that first year came to visit; his lung collapsed and he had to be hospitalized in Arezzo for 10 days before we could fly him home to New Jersey on a Lear jet air ambulance.  He died on November 7, 2004, but he got to see Valuberti and he loved it.  Our contractor’s idea of bringing in some soil to level the rear yard turned out to involve heavy clay.  We had to use a jack hammer to put in the landscaping and the garden, because the layer of soil that wasn’t the imported clay was only a few inches deep before you hit solid rock.  Aldo declined and needed to be hydrated intravenously daily, which meant we took separate vacations those first years.  There was no WiFi, just a dial-up connection via our fixed line phone, so it was “Oh, please God, no!” if someone sent us a photo.  The first winter it snowed a lot and we ran out of firewood.  Our immediate neighbors spoke no English and our Italian was molto scarso.  It was a huge change.

But nonetheless, it was a thrilling adventure, radically different, challenging, and beautiful.  We improved our Italian and made friends.  We planted a big vegetable garden and enjoyed Kilometer Zero.  We built a pergola and planted grapes over the terrace.  We hardscaped the rear patio and planted climbing roses, wisteria, jasmine, four cypress, five kinds of lavender, an herb garden, an olive tree, cardoons, Russian sage, a hedge, four bush roses, hydrangeas, and rosmarino rampicante.  We got to know where the weekly markets took place, and we used the Slow Food Guide Italy to take us to a new town each Sunday for lunch.

We grew to love our new life, and Valuberti became our very own little piece of Tuscany.   

Then in June of 2006, three of the eight houses at the end of the borgo were sold to an Italian who embarked on a three-year construction project to create an agriturismo.  The delicate balance between the deep peace and the quotidian inconvenience of living in a remote settlement tipped in favor of nostalgia for the benefits that city living offers.  On July 1, 2009, we moved to Berlin.  But our ties to the house we saved, the timeless landscape, the unique international roster of seasonal and permanent inhabitants, and the wonderful friends we made were strong, so strong that we continued to spend every spring and fall at Valuberti, enjoying it as a luxurious vacation house. 

After 18 years of knowing and loving this house as if it were our first-born, we decided it was time to let go.  And on July 26, 2022, we sold it to a wonderful American woman who loves it as much as we do.  She is the buyer we were waiting for, and La Casa della Luna Piena is the house she was looking for.  We are sooooo happy to have left this special place in her capable, loving hands.  

Here are the photos I took of the house, our garden and orchard, and the borgo on our last day—August 6, 2022--at Valuberti.  Nothing posed; warts and all, all packed up and ready to go.

The kitchen and pizza oven.

 

 

 

The downstairs guest bath with Jacuzzi tub for two.

The sky-lit, two-story atrium connecting the ground and first floors.

The cantina and storage room.  There is a Murphy bed built into the cabinetry.

The upstairs master bath with walk-in shower.

The living room with custom-made full moon fireplace mantle and napping husband.

The master bedroom.

The exterior.  The ox yoke hung over my parents' garage in New Jersey.

 

The rear garden and herb garden.

To the former vegetable garden via the stone steps Steve built, the orchard, Steve's asparagus patch, and the resting place of our pets under a very old pear tree.

The surroundings and the road home.

Arrivederci, Valuberti! We’ll always love you and we'll miss you, but it’s time to ride off into the sunset.  There is someone new to cherish you now.

Keep it real!

Marilyn