When our management team decided we would expand our all-inclusive tour company’s accommodation capacity, we didn’t want to get into a great big reno project.
We’d done that at our original villa, and it turned out great. But it was a maddening experience about as relaxing as playing a game of blind poker with your life savings and sanity on the line.
So, a rundown place with lots of potential was out. We needed something more turn key.
We eventually settled on a 160ish-year-old Baron’s Estate in decent shape close to our villa in Torre de’Passeri, Abruzzo, about 90 minutes east of Rome. I’ll write about the Estate’s history in another blog. This blog is about what we got, and what we need to get done before our April opening.
The estate is impressive and huge. There’s a main building, servants’ quarters, a coachman’s house, former stables, a gardener’s house, two equipment sheds, a pool, a forest of trees, an olive grove, and a huge garden area all surrounded by a brick wall.
It’s a freakin’ ESTATE man. How cool is that?
The main building has four wings on two floors. We will be operating mainly out of the two upper wings. One wing will have five bedrooms. The other will have a dining room, kitchen, solarium, terrace and office. There will be a suite and reception room in part of a downstairs wing, and the coachman’s house will have two-bedrooms, kitchenette, sitting room and one bathroom. And of course, the pool and grounds will be available too.
Nobody’s lived in the main building for a decade, but it was in good, habitable shape because the Baron’s descendants employed a caretaker, and she took her job seriously. The grounds and pool were in decent shape too because she did her best to keep things under control.
Still, two main projects were needed to get things up to professional vacation property standards. One inside, one outside.
Inside Project
Each wing has one common bathroom for two or three bedrooms. We could have tried to market the shared bathroom concept as a quaint throwback or part of a true Italian Estate experience. But, ah, no. There’s no amount of lipstick you could put on that stinky pig.
Also, to get to some of the rooms, you had to walk through others. Just image walking through a strangers room late at night while they are in bed to get to yours. “Oh, don’t mind me. You just keep doing what you are doing. Hey! What are you doing?” Some people might like that, but that’s not the kind of place we are running.
So inside, we are putting in four ensuite bathrooms in rooms that need them, putting up a few walls to make hallways, and installing air conditioning units in each room.
This work started before Christmas and is scheduled to be complete in a few weeks. It has radically transformed this wing. The pictures here are a little dark because most of the giant windows are shut. But don’t let that throw you off. It’s going to be fantastic.
Outside Project
As mentioned earlier, the caretaker did her best outside. She kept the brambles down, the leaves cleared, and the grass cut. But as I said, the grounds are expansive and the trees are huge. She would have needed a crane and to be an expert in chainsaw arts to keep up.
As a result, some trees had died and fell, branches were falling in high winds, especially around the pool, and several trees and limbs were threatening the main building.
Dodging random falling limbs big enough to kill would be a very exciting game, guaranteed to get your heart racing, but it didn’t seem like the kind of game many guests would like to play – or something our insurance guy would approve of.
The other thing that needed to be addressed outside is that as the pool area was only ever used by one or two people at a time, it wasn’t set up to accommodate a bunch of people lounging around socializing with cocktails after a wonderful day of touring the incredible sites of Abruzzo.
So, we brought in an arborist to get the trees under control and clear out an area beside the pool where we are going to set up lounge chairs, tables, umbrellas, and a seating area.
As soon as the trees started coming down, the grounds around the pool opened up. It’s even more impressive than we thought it would be. I can visualize the lounging and seating area and I bet it’s going to be a hit with the guests.
On the other side of the main building in the forest area, we still need to trim back the over grown hedges and generally clean up the area. But with the dead and dying trees gone, it’s already so beautiful that our masseur has commandeered one of the gazebos and he’s going to turn it into his studio for guests to get massages while the wind whispers in the leaves.
There’s a ton of other stuff to do to like putting together a professional kitchen and getting the dining room sorted out, patching and painting walls, ordering beds, etc. etc., but our team is on the job.
We’re well on target to have things ready by the time the first guests arrive. I can say with confidence that the Baron’s Estate is going to be a great addition to Amazing Abruzzo Tours. You should come and see it.
Next Sunday: Cleaning a pool that hadn’t been touched in five years. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. Turns out, it was me.
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The pine was past its time.
The rooms were nice, but I don’t think guests would like others cutting through their room.
Now we gotta hallway.
Sweet looking room, but where’s the bathroom?
Same rooms as above, but now with a wall and door separating it from the hallway and a bathroom going in.
This is the biggest room with the bathroom going in. It will be huge and have its own balcony.
The area around the pool needed some serious attention.
That’s better. Now we can build the sitting/lounging area.
Big branches were falling in and around the pool.
Now guest will be able to swim without worrying about falling branches
Those dead trees had to go, and they did.