As sure as porcini appearing ten days after a rainstorm, the winter real estate sections of the FT or the New York Times inevitably feature a couple who has bought and renovated a house in Tuscany, making it the center of their leisurely, but culturally rich and intensely social lives. I can only marvel at how quickly they assimilate, how friendly they become with the quirky but helpful, open-minded locals, and how thoroughly they live the dream.
“Dale and Lori Hutchinson had always longed to buy a house in Tuscany, and while they own other properties, they now consider their house here in Lerigno, an out of the way corner of this beautiful region, their one true home.” Dale and Lori came to the Tuscan real estate fad too long after the publication of Under the Tuscan Sun to get anything within fifty miles of civilization. They come for the middle two weeks of August and not a day more.
“Lori’s passion for nature and all things Italian meant that she felt at home here from the beginning. ‘Here, we can be close to the land. We grow our own vegetables and the children play in the fresh air all year round,’ Lori explains.” Lori speaks Rosetta-Stone Italian to her gardeners, without realizing they’re Albanian, while the kids hunker down in the basement media room. Continue reading Renovation in Translation
The Truth About Tuscany 