Casa dei due Mori - the house of the two mulberry trees

As we've fallen in love with Le Marche and Sant'Angelo, we wondered whether it would be possible to spend more time here, and less time commuting up the A14 (the main road from Felixstowe to the Midlands that is, not the A14 autostrada we use every time we fly to Ancona or Pescara). We decided that we would need a slightly larger house than Casa Fontanelle if we were spending more time in Italy. So in 2003 we started to hunt for suitable properties.

With the help of our friend and geometra Mauro Rieti, we spent an October weekend looking at half a dozen candidates. We saw properties in Penne San Giovanni, and outside Monte San Martino, but we decided we wanted to stay as close as possible to the village we have come to think of as a second home. We were very pleased to find that a wreck we had often admired on the hill road from Sant'Angelo towards Loro Piceno had become available for sale.

To cut a long story short, we made an offer immediately, and the sale of the land and ruin was completed in March 2004. We always wanted to use the same building team that made such a great job of Casa Fontanelle - so we knew that we would have to wait quite a while until they completed their current projects. We knew that would be at least a year, and probably nearer two - and so it proved. An original start date of midsummer 2005 was put off, but the work finally got under way September 2006 (after a false start in the summer) and the house was finished by August 2007. As of spring 2008, half the garden is done and the rest should be ready for the summer.

See more pictures of the area here or at my Picasaweb album home.

Casa dei due Mori - Highlights	Casa dei due Mori - The Four Year Project