Too late for Tuscany?

Reasons to be cheerful - Sunday 4th January

I suppose it's usual at this (early) time of year to reflect on what's gone before to look forward to the coming year and what it may bring, and today, as I look out on a cold, yet sunny day, it seems to be the thing to do.

Exactly a year ago today we set out to drive to Venice.  We had visited Venezia in the summer of 07, Mrs J's first time there, and she was smitten, and so we wanted to return when the crowds were thinner and the atmosphere heavier.  We were not to be disappointed.  After our summer trip through northern Italy (Udine, Venice, Padova & Verona), this period in Venice probably sealed our fate with regard to buying our house, but at that time we probably didn't even realise it ourselves.  Whilst we have our fair share of trials & tribulations, we could not have dared to imagine what last year brought us, in particular 3 things come to mind as the high spots of 2008:

1: Finding Romolini's (by accident), and through them buying Chicken House, not a Palazzo, but it is somewhere that has everything that we could want out of life at the moment, and it will be our base to explore further afield in Tuscany and Italy.

2: Amazingly even though we are not yet residents we have met/made friends with so many people in such a short time, and our neighbours are just fantastic. Once the project management is out of the way, I need to open my Italian books and be able to speak to our neighbours in something more than 'hi and bye' (Mrs J is the linguist in our family and is studying hard week in week out).

3: I started this blog to record our journey (and to prove I wasn't too old to learn new tricks), as I couldn't find any such similar stories on the web, and maybe to perhaps inspire somebody else to do the same.  A quick look at the map of readers shows just how interesting Tuscany is, with readers from USA, France, China, Brazil (and even Italy).

I've spent some time over the Xmas break to tidy up my 'project file', update my 'cash-flow forecast' and started to compile a list of questions for Alberto, for our next telephone chat next week, well after watching all those TV renovation shows I must practice what I preach, so what about Italian hopes for 2009....

• Can't wait for the first night we spend in Chicken House, and the countdown-ticker on the blog constantly reminds me of our target completion date.
• I'm sure when we move in there will be a few things yet to sort out, but when it is to be able to invite all our new friends to a 'housewarming' party, will be a day to remember (for us at least).
• To crack-on with the garden, and to plant our first Olive tree.  Is it the Chinese who say, 'the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today'.

Of course we have a few other family-targets, but compared to 2008, we are already looking for 2009 to be the best one yet.  Buon Anno

Our neighbour Michelangelo

During our house hunting trips, we toured all over the Tiber valley, criss-crossing from one side to the other, quickly adding unfamiliar places to our regular vocabulary, in addition to the picturesque Anghiari, and the photogenic Arezzo, one place that sticks is the birthplace of Michelangelo, which when we tumbled out of Riccardo's jeep just those few months ago, like typical open-jawed stranieri(foreigners), and now we are near neighbours of (Caprese) Michelangelo, being less than 10km from us at Chicken House. 

When we took some time off from houses we went back to see C. Michelangelo and were enchanted by the place, it was late afternoon in April, and we were the ONLY people around, I did not dare to think how busy it must get in high summer, and all those quaint little houses cheek-by-jowl with the narrow lanes must get no peace 24/7 in August.    

 

But that day it was all ours, from the house (or even castello) at the top of the hill were the great man was born & lived (but only to 5 months old a BBC documentary told me recently), to the restored church where he (full name Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni) was baptised, back in 1475, and all the streets in between. 

On a more down to earth note, we did'nt get any further update on progress, and can only hope that the snow melted and our builders continued with removing floors/ceilings, so we went out and did our bit to help the credit-crunch and bought the lights for the kitchen, deciding some time ago to use the staple of the hi-tech/minimalist designer the 'hi-wire' system, (thats the little spotlights that are strung from low-voltage wires right across the room), perhaps they are a bit funky for our old house, but they should fit quite snugly between the main Trave in the kitchen, time will tell.

Anyhow would be good to know if we had any electricity to power them with, perhaps we will get some good news at our next schedule tele-chat with Alberto on Wednesday, I'm a born again optimist! 

History house

As I am engrossed in the project management of the Chicken House project, then my other-half has the equally important job of learning Italian and talking to the neighbours, in particular the lady that lives across the lane (and one of the previous owners), and they are now firm pen-pals, exchanging info and ideas, and the latest letter we received answered a previously asked question about the house and its family history.

 

So, it seems the house has been in the family since 1900, when it was built by her Grandfather.  Sante lived in the house with the whole family and his 8 children until his death in 1965. Following the death of grandfather Sante, uncle Vitele (together with his wife and son) took up residence in the house, and they were there until 1970s... throughout the 70s the family spread throughout Italy, and the house then passed into the ownership of Niccoletta's father, being the only one who was interested in staying in the family home.

 

In the last 20-plus years a variety of tenants have come and gone, both related and not-related to the family, with the house only being completely empty in the most recent years.  With no heating apart from the open fire in the kitchen, and with no bathroom/WC it must have been a spartan existence.  Next we must ask if any photo's exist of the house previous residents, as its fascinating.

 

Contract signing & move-in

We returned to Italy in early June to sign the Contract (the Rogito), in the interim all actions regarding the Compremesso had been fulfilled, in particular the transfer of 30% of purchase price to the vendors, as reqd by the Italian house buying process.  After touching base with our agents, we agreed to meet at the lawyers office in Sansepolcro at 6pm (6pm on a Friday! who says Italians don't work hard).

We were ushered into a very impressive meeting room along with the 6 owners of our prospective house! all brothers & sisters of the same family, who had come back home for the signing from various parts of the Country. As is usual in these places the room was lined by rows upon rows of leather bound case-law volumes, in dark wood bookcases. As we waited, the 6 owners, 2 buyers, 2 agents, around us fussed 3 assistants of the Notary, I thought I would make a little polite conversation, so thro' Riccardo I asked 'if they were happy that the old house was finally sold', and whereas a few of them nodded in agreement, one brother launched into a very animated speech obviously saying that he wasn't happy etc etc, he was quickly muffled by his family members, and when I asked for a literal translation the subject was quickly dropped. Luckily for me, no further small talk was necessary as in came the Notary, and we got on with the main event.

Whilst the process was very formal, with lots of reading the contract in Italian, and then it was re-read in English for us, and of course numerous signatures, it was over in a flash, and I was being asked to pay for the service (a buyers task, not seller), and before we left the premises the agent also gave us the bill for his services.  So we entered the building with a handful of bankers drafts, and a cheque book, we left totally broke, with only a single front-door key to show for it, and yet we were smiling and saying Grazie to all and sundry. 

Next day we were up bright and early, keen to go and see our new purchase, but also keen to use our time productively, we also stopped off at the local DIY store, and bought some new tools.  The last time we saw the house it was full of stuff, and what was to be our bedroom was also full of pigeon droppings, from a hole in the attic, so we were pleasantly surprised to see that all rubbish had been gone, and all traces of pigeons too, (courtesy of our neighbour, who was also one of the previous owners), which saved us a serious task of cleaning up before we could get down to work.  The first jobs were to knock down a lean-to outhouse at the back of the property and an internal wall also had to go, if time permitted an assault on the garden was also in my mind.

The wall & outhouse were easy as they were built from clay air-bricks, and took longer to clean up the rubble than the demolition itself, the garden was something else. The last time we had visited the weeds had been a manageable knee height, now they towered over my head, this needed serious tools, so a visit to Graziotti http://www.graziotti.it/  farm machinery, as recommended by Riccardo, saw me the proud owner of a new heavy duty brush cutter, along with a deadly looking cutting blade as an added extra.

Before we left Italy this trip we also fitted in a meeting with our Geometra and also a recommended builder, we discussed what we wanted to do (and more importantly what we didn't want), and left with an understanding that we would receive copies of all necessary quotations and draft contracts by email, having read many accounts of such foreign financed projects in Tuscany, I couldn't wait!   

Why Chicken House?

As we climbed out of the Jeep, we were both impressed by the size of the house and how imposing it looked in the lengthening shadows. We had gone there unannounced, and luckily the neighbour was around to let us into the property, but we had to be quick as it was growing dark.  In an instant we recognised (thro' years of grime and dust), that this house more-so than any other we had seen that day had all the basic elements of the famous 'Toscana rustico', ie beams, terracotta, fireplace etc etc, but the place obviously hadn't been habited for at least 20 years, but some good news, it had a nice new roof, so that was one less job to do.

Outside, a big, overgrown garden was to the rear, and to the side a cacophony of chickens! We had come across veritable zoos in/next to some of the houses we had seen, it definitely wasn't as bad as some, but still it was loud and it was close, and turned me off the property, despite all its rustico-charm.  By now it was dark, so we called it a day, and Riccardo dropped us back to our Anghiari Hotel http://www.hotellameridiana.it

The next day was Saturday, so we fitted in a quick sightseeing trip to Arezzo, to see first hand the backdrop for 'la vita e bella' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/), with only enough time for a whistle-stop tour and a moment to sit and enjoy a 'spritz' (something we discovered the year before in Verona), we were back to Anghiari, and another round of houses to see, courtesy of Riccardo.  Of this second bunch, only 1 house stood out, or more precisely, its location and potential, being only a few kilometres from Caprese Michelangelo, the house was rather non-descript, half-old-half-modern, but it had acres of land, with potential to build.  By now the first house was already being known as 'chicken house' for speed of reference, this was now 'big-land house', and when we finished the day it was a 2-horse race, the deciding factor would be the price negotiations.

We left Italy the next day, reliant on Riccardo to do the negotiating and promising he'd call when he had a result.  We didn't have to wait long, and the following Thursday he announced that whilst the offer on 'big-land house' had been accepted the owner had changed his mind and rejected, but that 'chicken house' had been accepted, and that if we were serious we should proceed immediately. Of course I agreed and instructed Riccardo to proceed on our behalf and to prepare the first stage contract (Compremesso), and we pencilled in a date for early June to go back to Toscana to sign the papers, we were now on the road to becoming proud owners of a renovation project in Tuscany!

House hunting in April

A basic search on 'land for sale Italy', brought up more real estate agents, with some land, at ridiculously high prices, but also threw up one agency I definitely hadn't come across before, and whilst they didn't actually have any land for sale they did have a house that ticked all the boxes, at a reasonable price AND in Tuscany, unbelievable! After some consideration, checking the map for exact location, viewing and re-viewing the pictures on the website, I contacted the agent, Romolini, based in Anghiari in the Tiber valley http://www.romolini.com/index.php, and agreed a few weeks hence to go and see the property.

As already said, even tho' no ferries were needed, it was still a long way to go, approx 1000km (~660 miles), thats like Plymouth to Inverness, or New York to Cincinnati for US readers, so a 7am start one April morning saw us arrive in Anghiari by 6pm the same day, very tired but otherwise OK. The next day at 9am sharp we met Riccardo (Romolini), and jumped into his Jeep to start our house-hunting tour, but hardly had we left the confines of Anghiari when he turned to me and said 'you know that house that you wanted', 'er, it's sold!, I'm very sorry, just 2 days ago'.  That was like, great, we just came all this way for nothing. Riccardo, ever the salesman continued 'but its not a problem, I've got many houses, not even on the website, so I'll show you something even better'.  Feeling rather conned it was pointless to argue, better to just 'go with the flow' and see what the day brought, but I did insist to see the house-that-never-was, just to see if it really was a dream property.

As we drove we discussed our likes and dislikes, especially our target price, not wanting to waste our time dreaming or Riccardo's time on showing us properties way out of our reach. Part way through a very full day (in which we saw more than 20 houses in various states of repair) we eventually made it to the house we went there for, and fantastic, it wasn't the dream house I'd imagined, it was next to a working farm, very smelly & noisy with a brace of vicious dogs on the loose, great, cross that off the list and move on.

As he said, Riccardo showed us a lot of houses that had not reached his website, and proved continually that anybody who would contemplate buying a house in the Anghiari area without using Riccardo's (and his wife Marta) services would be crazy, as he knows everybody and everything (Real Estate and otherwise).  As the light was fading and we were considering what to do I turned to my research and to a batch of houses that were on the website and asked if we could fit in one more before we finished for the day. 'Oh that one' he said 'I haven't been there for ages', I didn't know if this was a good or a bad omen.

The search

How did we find our house (aka Chicken House, to be explained later), 'let's start at the very beginning' as they say.....

After living/working in Europe and Russia we had an idea that as Croatia was an up and coming country, ripe for EU accession etc, that we should get on the property ladder early and make the most of any rises in property values etc the more that the idea got around with other investors. So we did as all the property experts advise, we went there (3 years running), each time spending more time driving around prospective areas than on the beach, meeting real estate agents, viewing properties and talking to Croatian friends and other potential buyers. 

After all that effort we decided that outside of the main tourist areas and main tourist season, that for non-Croatians there wasn't a lot to do, but desperate to buy some property (and not in UK, even before the current credit crunch), where else would fit our criteria ie Europe, good weather & food, art & culture in abundance?

ITALY!  just the other side of the Adriatic, it was obvious (wasn't it?), so, again following previous experience we went for a road trip (that's the benefit of being in Europe, just jump in the car and go, no messin' about with ferries etc) in the summer of 2007, taking in the sights of Udine, Venice, Padua and Verona and all points in-between for 10 days, this was followed up with a long weekend in Venice in January this year, and that was it, we had to have a house in Italy.

Further following the pundits advice, I then set about researching my subject on the interweb, looking in that sweep from Udine to Verona as we had travelled, primarily because it was a great area, and do-able to drive from our home base in a reasonable time. But, no luck, very few properties for sale, and certainly nothing that looked like the archetypal Italian country house as eschewed by so many lifestyle change programmes.  Even after I brushed up on all the necessary search terms in Italian and started to search real estate agents that most foreigners would miss, still nothing. So I widened the search, further into Emilia Romagna (too far), Veneto (too expensive, I mean, Venice is in this region), Abruzzo & Le Marche (cheap, but way too far), all the time avoiding Tuscany because of its cliche 'Chiantishire' image and the perception that even a broken-down pile of stones needed the resources of Roman Abramovitch.

For weeks on end I searched for hours every night on the web, during which time I must have looked at hundreds of agents web sites and nigh on a thousand individual properties, which all had at least a handful of reasons NOT to go for them, I gave up on looking for houses and started searching for land, with a view to building from scratch.

Introduction

After many months of contemplation, web-searching and nail biting, my wife and I decided to take the plunge and buy a house for renovation in southern Tuscany, but after literally decades of foreigners chasing the elusive 'Tuscan Dream' is it 'Too late for Tuscany?

I know its been done hundreds (if not millions by now) of times in Tuscany and in other Italian regions, by people with bigger ideas and deeper pockets than I have, but we decided that Italy had everything we wanted (climate, food, friendly people), and we wanted to be a part of that, so in June this year (2008) we put our money down and started OUR journey to the dolce-vita.

In this blog, I hope to share with you our progress, documenting the steps we took, the tips and shortcuts, successes (and failures), and the people we meet along the way, so if there is anybody out there that still hasn't taken the plunge and bought a slice of bella italia, you may be inspired to do so, and not spend a fortune to achieve it.