We are selling our house after building it and living in it for the last 15 years. The house is too big for us now that all the children have left and we will now base ourselves in the UK. However, It is not a good time to sell as loans are more difficult to get and less houses are being sold during the economic downturn. I would say that the UK housing market is much more fluid and dynamic than here in Italy. Families tend to own a house that gets handed down the generations, or else the father builds a house for his son or daughter. I don’t think there is any inheritance tax or capital gains tax on the primary house. This way wealth stays in the family. Probably for this reason we should hang on to it or “give it” to our kids. Travelling so much would mean that the house will be empty for longish periods though which would not be too good. So right now if someone wants to buy it we will sell it.
The house is in a nice position about one kilometer up from Lago Maggiore. It is with an agent who has now asked us to update the photos. So I thought I might as well put them up here as well. I will be sorry to leave this area but logically it makes little sense to stay here now that I have no work ties, and all our children are scattered around the world.
Price ? Less than you would imagine.
We have just spent most of the week helping install a new sculpture in Colletta. It is a fantastic work consisting of 12 reinforced glass panes each weighing 80 kg. The panes have been laminated with an amber section which together form a 3-D reconstruction of the sculptor’s father. The sculptor is Jonty Horwitz who is the winner of this year’s Bernard Noble Sculpture prize. Jonty conceived the idea and defined each slice in the work which reconstructs a 3-D lidar scan of his own father. The glass has been manufactured to extreme constraints by Michael Baron. It was delivered earlier by truck from Cheltenham to Colletta and I helped unload it and store it initially. This experience made me realise the very tough logistics of transporting and constructing the piece by hand to a lovely glade by the river below Colletta. Firstly a reinforced concrete base had to be sunk underground to hold a combined weight of 1 ton of glass. Giulio and GianPietro worked several days to get this ready.
This Tuesday Jonty and Michael arrived and we started carrying down the glass on Wednesday morning. One single slip or one single crack against the stone walls might have damaged the corners of the glass so it was rather stressful, but Giulio and GianPietro really had the muscle to make it work. They took each end as 2 extra men walked the 200 metre steep path down to the glade. Then the whole of Thursday Jonty and Michael worked without a break, first to fix the base to the concrete, and then they built a wooden rig to exactly position the glass and then raise each one (with Giulio’s help) vertically spaced by exactly 13 cm. Finally the glass was secured with many layers of epoxy resin set into the base. Epoxy resin reaches 150 degrees C while it fixes! On Friday morning the last layer of epoxy was set and the rig removed. As with everything there were a couple of problems as it became clear that the glass spacing needed to be fixed at the top as well. However the first sight of the sculpture standing alone was stunning.
Then on Saturday we had the official presentation of the work. Many of Jonty’s family had flown in specially for it and all present went down to see it for the first time. Overwhelming positive response! It is a stunning work which will surprise people when they come across it walking near Colletta.
The whole of Italy is on holiday for Ferragosto which falls on August 15th. Its origins are religious as it was declared the day when the Virgin Mary ascended to heaven by one of the early popes. It is a public holiday and since it falls in the middle of August coincides with the big exodus from the cities. The main factories are closed for 2-3 weeks over this period. I had a nightmare on Thursday because I had to send a proposal to Nairobi by courier to arrive on the 19th at the latest. So I drove down to the DHL office in Albenga to be met with a big sign stuck proudly on the front door with DHL tape : “Chiuso per ferie”. After some frantic asking around I managed to send it by TNT instead from a local shop.
Ferragosto in Liguria also means there is nowhere to park a car anywhere near a beach, and all bagni are full especially in popular places like Alassio. Bagni are an uniquely Italian feature of beach life here which most visitors are put off by and consequently misunderstand. A bagno is a private concession for a section of beach where you can rent a lettino and an umbrella for the day/week/season. The beach is kept spotless, there is a bar with service, showers, lifeguard etc. and costs between 10-30 euro a day depending on the season. The public section of the beach is crowded, dirty and there is no shade. Once you accept that it’s best to pay then the experience becomes pleasant - although it goes against the grain for Anglo Saxons to pay to go an a beach.
We are here in Colletta which is another world away from the beach. Colletta is peaceful and lively at the same time in August. Even in August it is possible to find complete silence and peace, while if you want to party in the evening that is also possible. For us though this is not fully a holiday as for our sins we became involved in the rentals and village management. This means that we can never completely relax as we are responsible for the economics and the staff in the village. This is not an easy task in Italy as there are always surprises around the corner and I am discovering that the taxes on businesses are horrendous. Still it is a good season and we hope that overall we will more than break even and even clear some debts from last year !
Colletta was an abandoned medieval village before it was restored to top rate accommodation and the apartments sold. Consequently the village life has to be developed from scratch as there are no old inhabitants, bars, shops etc. Currently we have an Osteria/Bar which works well in the summer but which needs to exist also out of season to keep the village alive. Ths is the main challange - to find out of season activities like - walking, art, music, yoga, climbing, cycling activities to attract people to Colletta and thereby sustain the basic amentities.
