Has the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes wedding peaked your interest in Lake Bracciano? Below, you will find an article from a past issue of Dream of Italy , recounting one American woman's adventure in building a house on the lake.
When we were Romans,
we fell in love with Lake
Bracciano.
It wasn't hard. Lake Bracciano, less
than an hour from the Colosseum as
the pigeon flies, is one of the best day
trips out of the Italian capital.
The lake is big,
deep and clean.
Three ocher-colored
medieval
towns, one with a
rambling 16th-century
castle, sit
along its banks
and in the rolling
green hills hugging its waters.
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sun-kissed restaurants along the shore
is a favorite Roman pastime. And for
us, swimming off a rented pedal boat
in the lake's blue-green water is one of
life's great pleasures. Followed by
lunch.
So when we saw the little strip of land
for sale perched just above the lake in
the small town of Trevignano, we had to
buy it. We were staying in Rome forever.
We had decided that. So what better
long-term project than to slowly build
a weekend house at a place the family
all wanted to go when we woke up on
a summer morning?
The problem was the "forever" part.
Just two years after my husband, Mick,
and I sat at a settlement table and
plunked down most of our life's savings
for that little sliver of hill with its
amazing lake view, we were packing
up to move to Washington.
When we left Rome in the winter of 1997, our house was just a concrete
shell. Only the week before, we had
signed an agreement with Domenico, a
local builder, to construct the house. At
that point, we could have sold it, abandoning
the project like
we were doing our life
in Italy. But we decided
not to.
And we found that
the biggest trade-off
we made by moving
to Washington, D.C.
was the exchange of a
45-minute drive for an
18-hour, two-plane journey to our
weekend house. And forget the weekend
part altogether.
But we persisted. We felt we never
really had a choice.
So for the past five years, we have been
building a house in Italy from
Washington while working at
full-time jobs and raising
two teenagers,
going to check on the
project for only two --
sometimes three --
weeks a year.
And now, seven years after
we signed on the dotted line, we're
actually almost done. And we managed
to do it without getting divorced,
or having a nervous breakdown or a
serious falling-out with anyone in
Trevignano.
For anyone contemplating building a
house abroad, ours is a tale of the trials
that occur when you live tens of thousands
of miles away from your vacation
home.
The back story
Our house couldn't have happened
without Italo and Eufemia, the Italian
couple in their forties who own the
other half of our duplex. Our houses
-- theirs is hot pink, ours is yellowy
gold -- are attached on one side,
although you hardly notice it. (The colors
look good, too. I swear.)
Because I was born
in Italy and come
from a long line of
Italians, I know well
the Italian cardinal
rule: It's all who
you know. What
convinced me the
project was even
possible was that
we were basically doing it on the heels
of Italo and Eufemia, who knew exactly
what they were going to build and
with whom.
Italo works for the town government
and Eufemia sells vegetables in the
local market, and the two of them had
been waiting years for building
approval on their land.
The owner of our part of
the land immediately
put his up for sale when
the approval came
through. Land with building
approval is worth significantly
more than the
same parcel without approval -- for
obvious reasons.
Over the years Italo and Eufemia waited,
they researched
every builder, every
carpenter, every
plumber, every
wrought-iron worker
in the area. Although
you employ only one
builder in Italy, you
still have to choose
your own subcontractors, although the
builder can make recommendations.
We skipped the research entirely and
just used the same workers as Italo and
Eufemia.
So by the time we left Italy, we had
everyone lined up, down to the electrician
and the plumber (Eufemia's
nephew). The rather large obstacle of
who-would-do-what had been neatly
taken care of. And we watched while
our neighbors built their house, always
two steps ahead of us.
The plans that were approved by the
local council were also quite detailed.
They dictated every aspect of the proposed
houses -- from their square
footage to their height and width. We
were only allowed 1 1/2 levels above
ground; our houses would constitute
what is called a bifamiliare, or a two-family
house.
Most European countries prohibit
brand-new mini-mansions on the edge
of historic medieval town centers --
the main reason Europe still looks as it
does.
Italians stretch building plans as much
as they can, though, since a sense of
civic duty is not a predominant national
trait. But if they go too far, they're
slapped with hefty fines and sometimes
forced to take the offending
structure down -- unless a bribe can
help.
For our house, Domenico cheated as
much as he thought
we could get away
with, subtly adding
several hundred illegal
square feet to
our house by enclosing
a section that on
the plans was left
open as a portico,
digging out a wine cellar off the back
of the basement and extending the size
of the kitchen/dining room, which was
under the new portico area.
Hopefully nobody will notice. If anyone
tells on us, Italo and Eufemia
insisted, we'll just tell on them.
Everyone does it, she said.
Lots of tiles, no beds
Building a house means constantly
compromising. It also means a lot of
shopping. Both of these are not the best
ways to spend your vacation.
During one visit -- the
summers all run
together in one big blur
of errands --
Domenico said it was
time to pick out our
floors and tiles. We'd
go together to the store
one afternoon. He didn't
mention that we'd
be picking every floor, every tile, every
towel rack and every cabinet for the
entire house.
When we arrived at the store, we started
looking through the terracotta floor
tiles (most of the house has tile floors).
Then we moved on to the hardwood
samples for our bedroom. Then there
were the outside tiles for the terrace,
the two side patios and the area
around the front door.
Then came the bathroom section, filled
with a dizzying array of tiles, faucets,
bathtubs, handles, towel racks, shower
doors and shower nozzles.
No break after two hours in bathrooms.
Straight on to kitchens, where I
spent much of the time worrying about
the choices I had just made for the
bathrooms. Several fitted kitchens were
laid out. My throat was parched from
the July heat.
"We need to select our entire kitchen
now, too, Domenico?" I asked, my
head aching and Mick flagging next to
me.
"If you don't pick it this summer then
it'll all get delayed another year. Just
do it now. And then we'll go have a
gelato."
In less than 10 minutes, Mick and I
picked out the kitchen that we plan on
owning until we die. And I hate the
countertops.
In the land of
granite and marble
-- and they
weren't even that
much more -- we
picked a kitchen
with laminate
countertops. I didn't
even realize it
that afternoon.
But Domenico was right. Errands do
get delayed a year when you don't
have time to cross them off the list that
year. Like what happened with the
downstairs beds.
When we looked through our to-do list
a couple days before leaving in the
summer of 2000, we realized that one
of the things we hadn't yet done was
talk to Franco, our carpenter.
For years, we had been talking about
building two loft beds for our downstairs
bedrooms. We had to get that
squared away with Franco
before we left, or we'd
have no beds for two
years.
We swung by Franco's shop. It
was shuttered, even though
it was still before 1 p.m.,
Italian siesta closing time.
We went to the coffee bar
next door to ask where he was.
"Franco closed his shop for summer
vacation this morning," the guy at the
bar told us. "He was here until noon today closing up." I looked at my
watch. It was 12:30. We were leaving
the next day. He wouldn't be back
until September.
"Yell up to his parents," the coffee man
said helpfully. "They live above his
shop."
"Signora Torrigiani," I yelled at the
closed windows, trying to get Franco's
mother's attention. "Signora
Torrigiani!"
The windows stayed tightly shuttered.
"Maybe they went with him for a few
days," the coffee man suggested.
"When they come back, they can give
you the number of where he is."
When they come back? In a few days?
Tears sprang to my eyes.
"But I won't be here in a few days," I
stammered. "And I need him to come
up to my house today."
"Well, then come back when you are
here," he said. "He'll be here. Franco's
always here."
I started to cry. The man stared at me.
"That woman is getting very
upset about Franco not
being here," I heard him
say to an elderly gentleman
nursing a cup of coffee,
looking as if he had nothing
to do for the next few months.
"Isn't that the woman who's
built a house up the hill?" he
asked the coffee man. "Si, I think that
is her. Why do you think she's getting
that upset about Franco?"
A year later, we talked to Franco and
he came and measured. And so last
year, we had beds.
Putting down roots
Why?
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hard? Why didn't we just
sell when we left Italy for
Washington, D.C.? Well, for
starters, there's the lake --
and the kids.
At lunchtime in Trevignano,
we almost always head to our favorite
spot: a vine-covered restaurant called
La Casina Bianca (the Little White
House), which is along the lake. We
like it because you can swim at the
beach, eat a beautiful lunch, swim
some more, have an ice cream and a
coffee in the afternoon, all without
moving much.
The owner's three sons wait on tables
while the mother, a friendly
Neapolitan, cooks. We eat homemade
pasta with porcini mushrooms and the
lightly fried local lakefish known as
persico.
One day after lunch last summer, as
we sat on the sun-dappled
patio, the 14-year-old son of
an expatriate couple who
have lived in Trevignano for
years walked up and joined us.
"Ciao, Roscio!" the waiter called
to Julian, a lively redheaded teenager
with a face full of freckles. He's
known around town as Roscio or Red.
He's completely bilingual, and he's our
sons' best friend there.
Julian ordered french fries and doused
them with salt and fresh lemon. "I love
them with lemon," he told Patrick and
Ben, who were skeptical. "Let's go play
with the boat."
While the boys splashed each other
from their cheap blow-up boats, Mick
and I ordered two espressos and two
Amaros, the Sicilian after-dinner drink
we love, and watched them. One of the
best things about going to Trevignano
is what the boys do there.
Because we don't have a
computer and there's
nothing on Italian television
in the morning, they
do all of their summer
reading in the two weeks
we're there. In the afternoons,
they play for hours in the lake.
And in the evenings after dinner, they
walk over to the coffee bar in
Trevignano's main piazza and play
video games with a gaggle of local
kids. Or they beat them at basketball at
the old hoop in the center of the
square.
Trevignano is a safe, sleepy
little town. We let them run
around without worrying.
"Pat, over here," Ben called,
laughing at his big brother,
imploring him to throw the
ball. Julian hurled himself,
back first, onto the boat.
They're still little boys here.
And the coffee is delicious.
But what drove us to stick with our
house wasn't just what everyone
loves about Italy -- the cappuccino,
glorious weather, terraced
hills and astounding architecture.
For me, it was about my past,
my family's past and who I am. And
Mick knows and respects this.
My father, Luigi Iacono, brought his
family to Washington from Italy in
1957 when I was 3 years old, after he'd
lost most of his money in a failed business
venture in Naples. Luigi used to
tell my
brother and
me when we
were kids growing up in Arlington,
Virginia, that the Iaconos really
belonged in Italy, that America wasn't
our home. It was only temporary, he
would say. Assimilation was not his
goal; he insisted we speak only Italian
at home.
As with many immigrants, though, my
father never did go back. He died in
the United States, in a Virginia condo
only 10 months after Mick and I
moved back from Rome. My mother
still lives there.
Even though my parents never went
back, I did, my father's words propelling
me there. After I graduated
from college, I decided I had to go live
in Italy.
Mick and I met in Rome six
months after I arrived. We
stayed for six years. And
again, after our boys were
born, we went back for another
four. The time we thought
was going to be forever -- the
time we bought the land.
But as with my father, America had its
pull, too. At a certain point in my life,
it seemed the right place for me to go
with my family. And for now, it's better
that I stay in the United States.
When I do go back to Italy to live,
though -- as I surely will -- I'll have
my little duplex to go to, a luxury my
parents never had.
--Daniela Deane
The author's home in Trevignano can be
rented by the week. To learn more about it,
visit www.casabellavistaitaly.com
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