About us
The oldest part of the house was built in the 12th century as a watch tower overlooking the valley. Although the tower is no longer fully visible, you can still make out its large corner stones now integrated into the Tower apartment. The house was once part of a much larger estate (on the façade there is a red and ochre band which originally appeared on all of the estate buildings) and it was inhabited over the years by multiple families who settled here to work in the vineyards, olive groves and grain fields.After WWII, difficult living conditions and the end of the sharecropping system forced many families to leave their homes. Many houses, including Casa Ercole, were abandoned and fell into ruin. When our family bought the property at the end of the 1980s, the buildings had collapsed and the vineyards and olive groves had been overtaken by forest. We are a family of artisans. We come from a long tradition —six generations— of bookbinders and book restorers. We took on this new venture partly out of passion for the land and partly for the sheer challenge of cultivating it. We fell madly in love with the terrain and with the idea of living in harmony in a savage landscape full of color, scents, plants and animals. We knew the challenging part would come into play when the romantic vision of country life crashed into the difficult tasks that awaited us. We've come a long way. After much hard work to modernize the house—while safeguarding its architectural integrity and that of the surrounding landscape—we finally feel like we fully belong here. We are very proud of our small organic farm, especially our extra virgin olive oil, but also our fruit, aromatic herbs and garden. |