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| Grassy lawn leading up to Stazzo Chivoni, with flower gardens on the left |
Stazzo Chivoni is quite simply a little piece of paradise.
Leo and Marzia bought this old house about 10 years ago and with the help of
Leo’s architect mother, Anna, they remodeled and updated it for simple modern
living.
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| The fireplace was rebuilt to its original design and appearance. Stone walls are original. |
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| Dining table in the kitchen. The grate on the wall above the table allows heat from the fireplace to enter the kitchen. |
The place was just a shell with a dirt floor and 3/4 of a good roof when they bought it. They had to pour concrete, add plumbing and heating, and
replace all the doors and windows—most of which were missing to begin with.
They reworked the fireplace, and in the process, hired a man to make one hole
in the stone wall separating the living area from the kitchen, to allow heat
into both rooms.
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| Simple little kitchen where they turn out yummy stuff |
Except for a couple of holes drilled to allow radiators in
the bedrooms, all other wiring and piping lies beneath the concrete floor.
Since the structure is made of stone they could not conceal wiring within the
walls, so wires run inside simple white conduit that blends with the
whitewashed
calcareo covering the
walls.
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| The door openings and blue color are original, but these are replacement doors. Wiring is inside inconspicuous white conduit next to the door frames. Leo's mother, Anna, designed the lights from tree branches and simple bulbs from IKEA. |
Doorways are sized for people the 1850s, and Leo said he
learned early on to duck when passing from room to room. The interior doors are
all painted light blue—Leo said that this color, or green, were traditional and
indeed we noticed green doors on several older structures.
He also told me that any of these traditional houses in use
in the 1950s had had bathrooms added—but since this one had been in disuse,
theirs had to be built from scratch.
The house is not large: a guest room with a full bath at one
end; a living room where Leo keeps his computer at a small desk in the corner,
a kitchen with a sizeable table and compact working area, Leo and Marzia’s
bedroom with another bath, and a tiny room that can hold a single bed and
little else. They live quite simply in Sardinia, their possessions pared to a
minimum, their wardrobe casual and sturdy.
The property also has an outdoor dining shelter, enclosed on three sides and with a wood burning oven.
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| The dining shelter |
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| Leo stokes the outdoor oven |
The grounds have had a complete transformation as well. Leo’s
first photos of the property show nothing but packed dirt around the house, but
now it is a lush collection of flower and vegetable gardens, olive trees, and
fruits. Leo has a business designing gardens for clients, and over the
years, he built raised beds and pathways, enriching the soil with compost.
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| Flowers around the window to our room |
The climate is mild, and even in early May the grounds were
bursting with geraniums, daisies, jasmine, apple blossoms, and iris.
Interspersed among the flowers and grass are lettuce, onions, garlic, and fava
beans.
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| Fava beans growing in the yard |
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| Gauss shells favas in the outdoor eating shelter |
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| Pickeled fava beans and cured olives, both grown on the property. That thing in the middle is duck liver paté, not cat food! |
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| Old friends came by in the evening for dinner alfresco |
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| Home-grown olives and lava beans, homemade bread, local salumi |
Leo says that the
fave are
undemanding; he only needs to punch a hole in the soil and plant the seed—they
are sturdy plants that do not require cultivation. They swap their vegetables
for eggs from the neighbors, and rely on local sources for meat and cheese.
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| Laundry day |
Like most Europeans, Leo and Marzia do not have a dryer.
They have strung several clotheslines and in the dry air, a cotton shirt is ready
to wear two hours after it’s been hung out. They have a solar hot water heater,
and a septic system that relies on the roots of bamboo and other plants to
purify their wastewater. When I asked if they are able to use the wastewater
for irrigation, Leo answered, “Others have put in a water recovery system, but
we have not done this yet.”
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| Solar hot water heater |
Although they have natural gas heat available, they rely
extensively on the fireplace and the mass of the stone house to moderate the
temperature.
“In summer, it can be almost 40°C,” said Leo, “But if we
close the house during the day and open the windows at night, it stays quite
comfortable. At night the temperature is about 15-20°.”
To supplement the income from running their own bed and
breakfast, Leo and Marzia now manage two nearby properties owned by others.
They spend the winter months in a house they own in France and pay the bills by
renting it out while they are in Sardinia. They would like to be further off
the grid. Leo’s biggest frustration is that “I have to drive the car to go
everywhere.”
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