Architecture Wednesday: Villa Castelluccio

This Puglian Villa was completely renovated in 2021, stripped back to its essentials and recrafting the low-slung pared-back spaces in natural materials. After a period as a holiday retreat, Villa Castelluccio is back on the market offering up peace and solitude amid five acres of olive groves outside Ceglie Messapica in Puglia.

The three-bedroom bungalow still exhibits the pared-back warmth with soft tones, thick walls, local handiwork and thoughtful proportions where steady streams of light enter the home through a series of openings. At the center is a living room that leads directly into an open kitchen, where concrete countertops and sinks made by local artisans are paired with brass fittings and simple joinery. The kitchen and connected dining room form the house’s gathering point. There are two very large  bedrooms in the main building , each with an en suite bathroom, while the third bedroom studio sits a few meters away with its own shower room and secluded terrace.

More terraces extend from the house under timber pergolas, creating outdoor rooms for cooking, dining and lingering during the hotter months. A partially enclosed pool area sits deeper in the olive grove, edged by drought-tolerant gardens.

The villa is within easy reach of Ostuni, Martina Franca and both coasts, and can be yours for a hair more than $1.7M USD.

The Spaces

They're Everywhere ... Part Deux

It wasn’t hard, but I have found some more stupid to start the week …

TENNESSEE

The McMinn County School Board has voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” from an eighth-grade language arts curriculum due to concerns about profanity and an image of female nudity in its depiction of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust.

Art Spiegelman, the author of “Maus,” told CNBC:

“I’m kind of baffled by this. It’s leaving me with my jaw open, like, ‘What?’ I’ve met so many young people who ... have learned things from my book. … I also understand that Tennessee is obviously demented.”

Spiegelman suspects the school board members were motivated less  about some mild curse words—there are eight in the entire book—or the nudity—the nude woman in the book is Spiegelman’s mother, and the photo showcases the degrading way women were treated in the camps—and more by the subject of the book, which tells the story of his Jewish parents’ time in Nazi concentration camps, the mass murder of other Jews by Nazis, his mother’s suicide when he was just 20, and his relationship with his father.

What to do? Write letters? Protest? Cast a GODDAMNED vote? Yes, to all of that, but also do as Stephen King suggested on Twitter … find out which library has this book, and indeed all books banned by so-called conservatives, and check the book out and read it; or find a bookstore that sells it, buy it online, and read it.

Knowledge is power and if you read Spiegelman’s book you’ll see that the authorities in Tennessee are trying to erase the Holocaust from history.

And I know of at least 11 million reasons why that should never happen.

WASHINGTON

Robert LaMay, a State trooper was forced to step down from his job because he refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and after being let go, he told the state’s Democrat Governor Jay Inslee to “kiss my ass.”

Y’all know where this is going … this week LaMay died from COVID.

Sorry, not sorry.

NEW YORK CITY

Last weekend SNL made fun of Candace Owens in a skit, after which Owens ran to Fox to complain about the idea of a Black woman portraying another Black woman as stupid for laughs. Oh Candace, have you never seen SNL?

But then, minutes later on the same show, Owens showed how stupid she is when she went after … wait for it … Minnie Mouse, for wearing a pantsuit:

“It goes back to, like when they did this to the M&M’s and now they’re making [Minnie] more masculine … They’re taking all of these things that nobody was offended by and feel like they have to get rid of them and destroy them because they’re bored. You know, they’re absolutely bored. They’re trying to destroy fabrics of our society, pretending that there’s issues. So everybody looks over here, look at Minnie Mouse. Don’t look at inflation … look at Minnie Mouse. The world is going forward because we’ve got her in a pantsuit. Never mind, that you can’t get anything at the grocery store and you can’t buy a piece of bacon unless you’ve got $30 in your pocket. At least, we’re addressing the real problem, which is Minnie Mouse.”

Yes, there is no food at the grocery stores, and bacon costs $30.

Methinks Candace is too dumb to see that there are other places to shop, and she’s too dumb to note that even she wears pantsuits but a cartoon mouse doing so is taking it too far.

PS She’s been a leader in the conservative push to kill as many fellow conservatives as possible based on the theory that it will drive Joe Biden’s approval ratings down among the surviving Americans who were smart enough not to listen to people like Candace Owens in the first place.

And now she says the Moon landing was faked.

WISCONSIN

GOP Senator Ron Johnson is against government efforts to make childcare cheaper for parents:

“People decide to have families and become parents. That’s something they need to consider when they make that choice. I’ve never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.”

Johnson says slashing unemployment benefits to get more people back to work and alleviate the ongoing labor shortage would be a better alternative.

So, not only does Ron Johnson want to cut unemployment benefits, but he wants to make it harder for working people to get childcare so they can work.

ITALY

Pope Francis says parents of LGBTQIA children should not condemn them but offer them support.

But the Catholic Church will do nothing to help those same children, much less LGBTQ+ adults, and the church will never accept same-sex marriage.

How does a parent who is Catholic support an LGBTQIA child and also support a church that denies that child the right to marry when they are grown?

WASHINGTON DC

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch works right alongside of Justice Sonia Sotomayor who has diabetes, a condition that puts her at elevated risk for serious illness, or even death, from COVID-19. She has been the only justice to wear a mask on the bench since last fall when the justices resumed in-person arguments for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.

Sotomayor did not feel safe in close proximity to people who were unmasked so Chief Justice John Roberts, understanding that, asked the other justices to mask up except Gorsuch, who refused. His continued refusal means Sotomayor has not attended the justices’ weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone.

Get educated. Save yourself from The Stupids.

 

Vacation Want: Casa Ojalá

I am not a difficult traveler. I don’t need five-star accommodations, but I do like someplace nice and clean, with a comfy bed and nice bath.

Enter Casa Ojalá. After a celebrated debut at Milan Design Week in 2019, Casa Ojalá [Hope House] has officially premiered its first unit in Tuscany’s Val d’Orcia region. The compact cabin, conceived by Italian architect Beatrice Bonzanigo, is perched on a hillside in the 5,000-acre Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco estate, which hosts a luxury hotel with its own Brunello di Montalcino winery.

If you’ve never had Brunello di Montalcino, a delicious Sangiovese, you haven’t tasted heaven, but I digress …

After the smash debut, Bonzanigo teamed up with engineer Ryan Nesbitt to develop the concept into full-scale production, featuring manual mechanisms of ropes, pulleys, and cranks—inspired by the same system on boats—the roughly 291-square-foot guest suite can be fully opened, or closed, concealing walls, floor and ceiling tiles, and furniture.

The customizable, timber-clad cabin comes with options for retractable single and double beds that can be stored beneath the floor to maximize space in the living areas. A freestanding tub sits below one of the structure’s roof panels, which can open for sunbathing and stargazing. A ladder leads to a terrace lounge area that is accessible via a roof hatch.

These little transformative off-the-grid hotel rooms can be placed just about anywhere in the world, whether “by the ocean of Tulum, among the Vermont forests, or on the sands of Dubai.”

I want one in Tuscany so I can climb the roof and drink my Brunello di Montalcino, or sit in the open-air bath and drink my Brunello di Montalcino, or in the sitting area or the bedroom area, or just wandering through the fields drinking my Brunello di Montalcino.

Casa Ojalá  Dwell

Architecture Wednesday: Ca' Giovanni

Another tiny house, though this time in Piateda, Italy, and this time even more rustic with some modern touches.’

It’s a small home now, but it has been a cattle shed, a small warehouse, and a barn dating back to the early 900s. Yes, a thousand years ago. And with such a rich history the architect preserved as much as possible of both materials and form.

On the external façades, the plaster was kept as it was, while inside it was completely removed to reveal the original stone walls, while the roof, both the supporting structure and the chestnut wood paneling and the covering layer of rusty corrugated sheet, have been restored. The interior openings have been respected by inserting wooden frames, while the floor is concrete to mimic the typical floors of the houses of the past.

On the lower level, in the portion of the building used as a stable and warehouse, was transformed into a small bar and studio. The upper floor, the original hayloft, a kitchen and a living room have been created, while the bedroom and the bathroom have taken the place of the old storage room.

The architect also designed many of the furnishings, and also crafted both the kitchen block and the fireplace of painted iron. Many of the other furnishings—chairs, armchairs, wardrobes, chandeliers—were found in the original building, restored and re-used.

It's not big, but it’s rustic and modern, with a great sense of history … and it’s Italian.

Arch Daily

Architecture Wednesday: Home in Perugia

 I’ll keep this simple …I love this home because it’s Italian, and sleek and modern, rustic and luxurious … all the things I strive to be and just and what I need right now. 

Plus, indoor and an outdoor pools don’t hurt.

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