Sunday, June 5, 2011

Here goes nothing...Italian escrow to close in a week.

Nearly four years, after the passing of my first wife, I found myself voyaging to the countryside in Northern Italy to visit family.  We met our family members from my grandfather's side(Giuseppe Senestraro) and immediately felt at home in this little corner of the Italian Alps. 

We met Cousin Giovanni, Uncle Giuseppe, Aunt Andreana and many others who looked remarkably like the face that I see in the mirror.  It was a surreal experience to return home to this village that has been part of our heritage for nearly six hundred years.  We immediately fell in love with our long lost family members, the majestic Italian Alps and the little villages comprised of stone houses that hug the hillsides.

The Toce River--Crossing on the Way to Veglio



After a three hour lunch with more than adequate amounts of very 'rustic" homemade wine, we found ourselves driving up the windy mountain roads to find the little village of Veglio.  This comune of a little over 600 people was the ancestoral home including the little cropping of ten houses abandoned by my great Uncles in the 1961 where my grandfather grew up. 

Walking the little paths through the old stone houses, wandering through the grapevines and the pasture where Papa Tuna(grandpa) would have kept his cows as a youth was an amazing experience.  One of guides that day was Andrea Scotton, who is just a year older than my daughter Alexandra.  Andrea at the time a student of architecture in Milan has an incredble passion for the beauty and meaning of these villages and houses.  He quickly shared that with us and after even more wine and chocolate on the mountain, we began talking about restoring the old family house.

Andrea doing what he does best!


Today, we are one week away from closing escrow or whatever the Italians call it on this dilapidated building first built in the around 1500 AD.  My brother Mark and Cousin Andrea are joining me in this journey to create a home in the mountains that can be shared with our family and friends for generations to come.

I was thinking about this project and the strange reactions that I get from many people when I tell them about our plans and thought it would be interesting to keep this blog to tell the story of our restoration.  If I had a dollar or a euro for every set of rolled eyes upon my revelation, we would be able to finance this but for now we will have to borrow from our kid's inheritance.  I think we all admit going in that we have no idea exactly how this is going to turn out.




A hopeful rendition of the finished product
In preparation for the challenging conversations that I am sure will happen along the way, I have rented The Money Pit and have looked at my copy of the Six Hundred Dollar Tomato.  We have already had a few emails that start with Dear Uncles, I have some bad news...and I am sure there promises to be a few more of those in our future.  With that said, I also believe that this will be a great story to be told to our grandchildren.

So with that, we are wiring $32K in hard earned US cash in a few days to secure our little piece of Italy.  That pays the eight  family members who now own the property and also the taxes and notary charges which were more than the property costs itself.  This for certain is the tip of the iceberg and I did not have a good answer when my wife Linda asked about how much the full project is going to cost.  Perhaps we should watch Tom Hanks and Shelly Long tonight!

Our escrow is scheduled to close on the June the 11th.  Fingers crossed that all goes smoothly.  Andrea has worked very hard to secure the necessary documents and agreements from the sellers.  I will let you all know when that happens!

Ciao for now.

Joe

2 comments:

  1. A more fitting show to watch is Year is Provence by Peter Mayle or read the book. :)

    Great idea to document it as a blog too.

    I follow this blog: http://www.stephmodo.com/ If you look on her side bar, you will see "our renovation in southern france." Beautiful place, that I would love to rent some time :)

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  2. What an adventure! I look forward to every post! I think it is an awesome idea-although I will be honest, not sure how I would feel if it was Rod's idea! lol! Have you seen "Under the Tuscan Sun"? ;-)

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