Ulivo, painted apartment in a farmhouse 10 minutes driving from Perugia downtown

We left Milan where we were born and lived for 30 years. We suffered more and more the absurdity of a business-oriented life model, with all the sad rituals that cover-up the fierce competition behind courtesy and politeness appearances.

We wanted our children to approach this reality as late as possible. First, we wished them to become stronger during childhood and adolescence by growing in contact with nature, while enjoying a freedom that cannot be found in the four walls of a city apartment.

So, we decided to move to the countryside, where it took time to abandon the unnatural rhythms of Milan. Slowly we learned to respect the natural cycles and the importance of waiting.

Here we have managed to take a step back as individuals, no longer feeling ourselves to be the centre of the world but realizing that we are small objects inserted in an immensely broader context of which – despite the arrogance of science – we miss most of the purposes and mechanisms. We have acquired the awareness of having the same value of every other living being, animal, vegetable and mineral.

We wanted to create a structure where this synergic dimension could also be perceived by our guests, without returning to the difficulties of the old agricultural world, yet benefiting from an adequate level of comfort; without encroaching on luxury and unnecessary ease, but with an eye to the environment, as the farmhouse is sustained by photovoltaic panels, solar thermal energy, station to charge electric vehicles, drinking water directly from the spring inside the property.

Marco and Paola, founders and owners of La Fonte