FLORENCE SOLO: Nobody Will Live In, and Then Restores Them
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INSIDE: ROME: Rent Historic Properties 2 Florence Finds 5 Sleeping Slow Food Extravaganza 6 Rome’s Rose Garden Palace 7 Where Keats Segway Tours 7 Died he keys—two small, one long Italian Tourism Board Italian Tourism Florence’s Ponte Vecchio T and heavy—came in the mail. With a clunk and a jingle, they fell from an envelope with a United Kingdom postmark dream of onto our dining table in Brooklyn, N.Y. We hand- carried the keys to Rome and used them to open our way to a stay in a house beside the Spanish Steps— the one where poet John Keats died of tuberculosis (and complications of lovesickness) 185 years ago. ITALYVolume 5, Issue 3 www.dreamofitaly.com April 2006 My wife and I rented the apartment from the Landmark Trust, a British brainchild that raises money from charities to save centuries-old wrecks FLORENCE SOLO: nobody will live in, and then restores them. In some cases, the restoration The Highs & Lows of Going Alone takes years and costs millions of dol- lars. To generate the funds to main- was determined to see tion being lushly painted pillowy, tain the homes, the Trust rents them Florence, and billowing figures that appear out to hotel-jaded travelers like me. sooner rather likely to overflow outsized than later. canvases). Quirky is the Landmark Trust’s Why Florence? Perhaps leitmotif. It buys several old proper- all the glowing references As for the sense of urgency— ties a year, and now has 183 towers, I’ve read about the beauty of I think of my mother, regret- chapels, follies and forts, mostly in the city, or the ravings (and I fully wishing that she’d Britain but also in Italy. One of the do mean ravings) from family gone to Stockbridge, in newest spots available to travelers: and friends about its abun- western Massachusetts, to “the Ruin,” an 18th-century mock dant art treasures had see the Norman Rockwell ruin in North Yorkshire that has been taken over that part of Museum. It wasn’t far from restored to its original ruined state. my brain that stores “next trip” Rhinebeck, N.Y., where she (Guests are advised to reach the toilet bytes. And, my well-traveled and my father had retired, but by “flitting” across “a moonlit ter- brother’s observation that Florence has something else always took priority. race.”) The roster includes the more art per square foot than any other I didn’t want to have a so deeply felt Pineapple, a 1777 neoclassical house, city impressed me. regret. also in North Yorkshire, that has a gigantic you-guessed-it on the roof. I’ve never met a museum I didn’t like, I’ve been single for a few years after a and although it has taken me some long marriage, and I enjoy my own The stock of landmark homes avail- years to fully appreciate the extraordi- company [she said, modestly]. I’ve able to travelers has been steadily nary qualities of medieval painters, traveled happily with friends (three increasing over the years. In addition I’ve become a convert (the one excep- continued on page 4 continued on page 2 Dante called Florence “the most beautiful and most famous daughter of Rome.” Sleeping Where Keats Died continued from page 1 “I confess to feeling a shame I actually lived in one of the to the homes in the U.K. and Italy, Naulakha, near Brattleboro, where As with its counterparts in other coun- Ireland and the U.S. each now have a Rudyard Kipling wrote the Jungle tries, the trust, based in Maidenhead, Landmark Trust. Interest in renting his- Books. Landmark Trust USA used to be Berkshire, protects its buildings from toric properties has picked up in recent an arm of the British group but is typical vacation-rental shocks such as years as business travelers now independent. Its properties next-door gas stations and views of spend increasing amounts of are also available for rent. lead smelters. It is involved in a court time in chain hotels and battle in Italy over an autostrada project want an alternative during For whimsical scope, the that is within sight of its 16th century their vacations, according to British Landmark Trust takes villa near Venice, designed by Andrea travel analysts. One sign of the cake. The most popular Palladio. that: the popularity of Scottish properties tend to be towers, castles as places to stay. generally sleeping four, that As we learned during our two-night range from about $792 to $1,443 for stay on Piazza di Spagna, the trust does- In the U.S., Landmark Trust USA has three days. Also popular are the larger n’t overprotect its guests. We were told salvaged four houses in Vermont (three country homes suitable for gatherings not to appear at the house before 4 in the past three years) including such as family reunions. p.m., despite my wife’s 7 a.m. touch- The Details... Landmark Trust LANDMARK TRUST where Keats spent his last Sant’ Antonio (44) 01628 825925 PROPERTIES IN days.“Every tall shuttered Tivoli (near Rome) www.landmarktrust.org.uk ITALY window has a view almost unchanged since the days 2 This building preservation Prices below are the starting This old monastery of the Grand Tour,” charity rescues and restores rates, per night, to rent the contains remnants of according to the architecturally interesting entire property. Properties thousands of years of Landmark Trust. Sleeps and historic buildings at risk, must be booked for a history including walls of four. ($453) giving them a future by rent- minimum of three nights. a villa dating to 60 B.C. ing them for self-catering and believed to have belonged to the poet Horace. vacations. Once a building The simple rooms have shuttered windows over- becomes a Landmark, its looking a valley and a waterfall. Sleeps 12. ($462) vacation rental income pays for its upkeep. Money to save other buildings at risk Villa Saraceno is raised in other ways. Finale (Vicenza) Full details of all 183 Although the Veneto is Landmark Trust buildings sprinkled with 16th- are available in the 40th Casa Guidi century villas designed anniversary edition of the Piazza San Felice, Florence by Andrea Palladio,Villa Saraceno, built as a country Landmark Trust retreat and working farm, is the only one that can be Handbook, the price of Once the home of poets rented like this. Enjoy restored frescoes in the grand which can be refunded Keats-Shelley House Robert and Elizabeth room, sitting room and loggia, an open fireplace and against the first booking. Piazza di Spagna, Rome Barrett Browning, Casa enclosed garden. Sleeps 16. ($520) The Handbook can be The third-floor apartment Guidi was purchased by bought through the has been refurbished to the Browning Institute in Landmark USA office for look as it did in 1800, 1971 and refurbished to $25. Call (802) 254-6868. — Kathy McCabe almost identical to the appear as it did when the second-floor rooms young couple lived there. 1 € = $1.23 at press time Sleeps six. ($384) Keats did not write a single line of eful smugness in being able to pretend for a couple of days that best houses in one of the best locations in one of the best cities.” down. So, keys in Keats death We fell asleep to the babble of tourists her pocket, she mask, a lock of on the steps, and awoke, staring up at checked her bag at his hair and a those trompe l’oeil rosettes, to the bab- the train station and rental receipt for ble of the Bernini fountain beneath our went to look at art. his piano. shutters. At 10 a.m. on our second morning, the Landmark Trust’s house- We prefer eat-in Keats would keepers came and hustled us out. We kitchens to room surely recognize lugged our bags down to the street to service, and I confess the apartment’s look for a cab in the rain. Then my to feeling a shameful four big rooms, wife put the keys to the apartment into The Keats apartment smugness in being able to with their stone floors, the trust’s prepaid envelope, and we pretend for a couple of days faded rugs, oak chests popped them back into the post. that I actually lived in one of and oil portraits. The the best houses in one of the bathroom, a full kitchen, — Barry Newman, best locations in one of the and an old short-wave The Wall Street Journal best cities. At $570 a night, radio are the anachro- Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street our digs on the Spanish nisms. (The radio didn’t Journal, Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Steps were worth it. On the work.) Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. other hand, if you want 5- License number 1453730605947. star coddling in Rome, stay One evening, we walked at the Hotel de Russie (cost: to a salumeria and about $820 a night for a brought back wine, medium-size room with a cheese, bread, olives and queen bed). Piazza di Spagna prosciutto. We dined at dream of 3 home, at a long dark-wood table One floor below our apartment was guarded by a large Roman head with a the Keats-Shelley House, which occupies broken nose. ITALY the rooms where Keats, staring at the Kathleen A. McCabe blue and white trompe l’oeil rosettes Publisher and Editor-In-Chief on the ceiling, raved and hemorrhaged for more than three months until his Copy Editor: Stephen J.