We didn’t plan to run a villa. Then we saw this place.
Our Story: How a house in the hills changed everything.
We came to Sabina looking for a weekend place. Somewhere quiet, reasonably close to Rome, with enough land to feel private. We found a 10-hectare hilltop estate with olive groves, a lavender field, and a view that stopped us mid-sentence.
The villa had belonged to Renato Balestra, the fashion designer who dressed Jackie Kennedy and half the Italian aristocracy. You could see it in the bones of the house: the proportions of the rooms, the way every window seemed to frame something worth looking at, the stone walls that had been there for centuries and would be there for centuries more.
We weren’t looking for a project. We got one anyway.
The Restoration
Keep what matters. Fix what doesn’t.
Our approach was straightforward: preserve everything that gave the house its character, and upgrade everything a guest would actually notice.
We kept the original wooden beams. The fireplace that anchors the living room. The slightly irregular floor tiles and the door handles that feel like they’ve been turned ten thousand times. These are the things you can’t buy new.
We added proper air conditioning, Sabina Summers demands it. The kitchen is equipped for real cooking. The beds are the kind you choose after one too many beautiful places with terrible mattresses.
The WiFi reaches outside. A team of gardeners looks after the grounds. The pool equipment is maintained weekly. None of this is visible in photographs, and that’s the point: the best hospitality is the kind you don’t notice until it isn’t there.
Why sabina
The part of Italy that Italy kept for itself.
Sabina isn’t Tuscany. There are no tour buses, no wine-bar crawls marketed at hen parties, no gelato shops competing for the same Instagram angle. That’s exactly why we’re here.
This region has been producing some of Italy’s best olive oil since the Roman Republic. The hill towns, Magliano Sabina, Otricoli, Narni are the real thing: medieval walls, morning markets, old men arguing about football in the piazza. Nobody’s performing “authentic Italy” here. They’re just living it.
We’re 50 minutes from Rome when you want it. The rest of the time, you’re somewhere that feels like it belongs to a different century, in the best possible way.
How we host
No front desk. No algorithm. Just us.
We don’t run this through a booking engine. When you enquire, you’re talking to us, not a reservation system, not a virtual assistant, not someone reading from a script.
We answer questions about the area because we know the answer. We know which restaurant in Orvieto is worth the drive and which one coasts on its terrace view. We know that the Thursday market in Viterbo is better than anything you’ll find in Rome. We know that Stifone on a Tuesday morning in June is paradise, and on a Saturday in August it’s a car park.
This kind of local knowledge doesn’t scale. That’s fine. We’re not trying to scale. We’re trying to make sure the ten people staying in our house at any given time have the best week of their year.
Meet the Property
What you’re getting.
Location
In the heart of Sabina.
Strada Grancino, Magliano Sabina, Rieti — Lazio, Italy
50′
From Rome
35′
From Orvieto
10 ha
Private estate
5
Bedrooms
Ready to see it for yourself?
We respond to every enquiry within 24 hours. Usually faster — especially if you catch us between the pool and dinner.