Things are rounding into focus at our new Amazing Abruzzo location, the Baron’s Estate. It’s really looking great. So great, in fact, I can’t control myself.

I was going to introduce the bedrooms all at once closer to our opening date, but when I saw the nearly finished second biggest room this week, waiting was out of the question.

So.

Drum roll please.

Badadadadadadadadadadadaaaaaaaa … PING!

Welcome to the Duke’s Room.

It’s the first unveiling of the Estate’s six bedrooms and two-bedroom cottage. I knew The Duke’s room would be nice, but check out the pictures.

That’s exciting!

And when I’m excited about something, I just don’t have it in me to wait.

**That’s me contemplating life and death. I’m not good at it.**

As a kid, almost every year I searched for and found my Christmas presents. It helped that my mother always hid them behind the sheets the linen closet. I’d opened them, see what they were and try to rewrap them. Did I get caught and get in trouble? Yup, but it was worth it.

I can’t even keep myself from looking at the score of a sports game that’s been played so I can watch a replay of it and be excited about the outcome. I’ve tried. I get about five minutes in and the compulsion to check the score to see how it ends is too much. I check the score, and turn off the television.

I’ve even read the last chapter of a book first so I know how it ends. I know that makes me a horrible person, but I can’t help it.

Hell, if I could find out how I’m going to die, I’d be all over it.

I used to think I knew. For a while there, I thought jealous husband. But then I got married, and I’m a good boy. Then I thought, lung cancer, but then I quit smoking. Liver disease is still on the table, but I’m drinking a lot less than I used too. So, I really don’t know how I’m going to die, and it’s killing me. How? How? HOW?

Jesus. My heart’s racing.

Where did that come from?

Whatever.

Nevermind.

That’s not the point of this.

I think I need an editor.

I definately need an editor

Sooo … ya …. the Duke’s room. Right. That’s the point here. OK. Start again.

The Duke’s room is the last room on the second-floor bedroom wing of the Estate’s main building, up one flight of stairs. It’s our second biggest room with 300 square feet of space, which is enormous for an Italian room. It has seven windows looking out over the Estate’s private forest. This gives it a treehouse sort of feel; like you’re sleeping in the leaves, and you kind of are. Right outside those windows, towering beech trees surround the wing.

**The Duke’s room has a full ensuite bathroom.**

Unlike the four other rooms in the wing, the Duke’s room already had a bathroom attached. It’s more spacious than the other bathrooms we are putting in. Those are what they call pocket bathrooms used in most hotels to conserve space. The Duke’s room’s bathroom is big because it used to serve as the bathroom for half of the bedroom wing, which was treated as an enormous apartment back when the Baron’s family still lived in the Estate.

**The bathroom is bright and … ahem … airy.**

The room is mostly furnished and decorated with furniture and art found in the Estate. There’s a huge wardrobe that had to be taken apart, moved from where it was, and put back together in the room. There’s an antique desk and bedside tables. My favorite thing in the room is the bed footboard cupboard. It’s an old wooden box they used to make bread dough in. Fun!

The only new thing in the room is the bed. No saggy old spring mattresses for our guests. We have soft, but not too soft, memory foam mattresses on top of European wood and steal mattress foundations, just like at our Villa d’Abruzzo location about a five-minute walk from the Estate. The Duke’s room has a European queen-size bed. That’s bigger than a North American double, but smaller than a North American queen.

It's the first room that’s ready because there wasn’t much to do. We had to empty out a few dozen boxes of magazines and books, a desk, a large table, and get rid of a crappy Ikea wardrobe. A fresh coat of paint all around and good scrubbing and that was about it.

It really is a stunning room and I can’t wait for April when the first guests booked into the room arrive. This is going to be fun.

So, in summary:

The Duke’s room is ready, and it’s beautiful; and

I don’t know how I’m going to die, and it’s driving me crazy.

Maybe a car crash. These Italians drive like madmen. That could happen. Maybe a stroke. Probably not though. I’m a lot calmer now, and that doesn’t run in our family. Cancer does though. Cancer gets most people in my family.

So probably cancer. Ya. Cancer is the most likely way I’ll die.

Sorry. That’s enough.

Bye.

Not bye like I’m going to die either.

More like, bye “See you later.”

OK.

I’ll stop.

The Duke's Room