Casa Citerna

A 12th-Century Village House in Chianti Gets a Modern Makeover

The home of a designer, this former village original has been thoroughly updated for style and sustainability by Officina Abitare architects and featured in design magazines and on online architectural platforms. The 150-square-meter space of the old house combines traditional styling with new, expansive, geometric additions, including a continuous surface floor in beeswax-topped lime (pastellone) and lime-painted thermal cork plasters on the walls. The standout fireplace serves as the backdrop to the dining area that’s connected to the living room by a steel portal.

The kitchen overlooks the garden and features a steel portal of its own, and the house is infused with classic Tuscan materials such as marble and limestone, chestnut ceiling timbers, handformed terracotta, and historic stone.

A stone staircase leads to the upstairs bedrooms—the space entirely reconfigured and sleekly minimal in style, with select windows offering views of Pratomagno, the nearby peak that’s often snow-capped in winter. Wooden floors are made of natural oil-finished oak.

Outdoors, the home’s backyard offers a shaded dining space and barbecue area, patio loungers and ancient stone walls of the village, with water features and landscaped beds. There is on-site driveway parking and car charging.

Layout

Ground floor: Kitchen with marble countertops, dining room for six, small living area with sofa and TV, wood-burning fireplace, half bathroom

Upstairs: Double bedroom with in-room bath (terracotta shower stall, bidet, toilet, double stone sink) and dressing room with a desk; bedroom with a pair of convertible twins, private bath with shower, toilet, bidet and marble sink

Outdoors: Backyard garden with shaded dining area enclosed by stone walls, landscaping, water feature

Additional features

Green building qualification, radiant underfloor heating and cooling. Pets allowed.

Around

Located in Poggio alla Croce, a hillside village in the Chianti region about 40 minutes from the heart of Florence, this contemporary renovation retains its historic village charms, with a sleek contemporary interior. The village has only about 250 inhabitants and is best known today for its access to trekking and mountain biking trails, but it does offer a restaurant and bar/shop a few steps from the home. The village is located at altitude, about 500 meters above sea level, making it a destination for outdoor recreation enthusiasts-in-the-know from the nearby cities of Florence (40 minutes) Siena (1 hour 15 minutes), and Arezzo (50 minutes).

The village overlooks overlooks two valleys: Chianti and Valdarno. Hikers and mountain bikers can easily access the region’s sentieros from the village, with the Sentiero Naturalistico Poggio Citerna Ingresso Nord, the Sentiero della memoria Monti Scalari e Pian D’Albero, as well as the paths up Pratomagno peak or picturesque natural pools and falls in the Loro Ciuffenna area. The ancient Badia a Montescalari is an abbey founded before 1040 on a nearby hilltop, its ruins worth wandering, and the fortified Celle Castle was built directly into the rock of another hilltop in the 13th to 16th centuries. The magnificent Castello di Sammezzano is an abandoned palazzo with Moorish Revival architecture that’s extraordinary, even though only visitable from the outside. And of course, wine tourism is at a premium around the region, with Chianti’s rich vintages available for tasting at vineyards in the hills surrounding the town.

Location

Poggio alla Croce, Chianti, Tuscany, Italy. Nearest airports: Florence (50 minutes), Pisa (1.5 hours)

Best time to visit

April to October

Photography: Leonardo Morfini