Our journey began over 30 years ago when we first visited the sunflower strewn hills of Montepulciano, Southern Tuscany famous for its wines and culinary delights. With friends and family, we had looked to rent an old Italian Villa house, so we could truly experience the Italian lifestyle.
The modest Villa for rent we found, which if I recall correctly recall didn’teven have air conditioning, but it did have a private pool was the start of a love affair with the Italian way of life. Year on year our appetite grew for all things Italian and as our group of friends grew, we rented larger villas in different towns and cities always in either Tuscany or Umbria.
In February 2020 our love of all things Italian was about to change our lives for good and our Italian holidays were to become a permanent way of life. After several months of travelling the length and breadth of Italy in search of the perfect property almost by accident we stumbled across Casale Zeno. The drive down the unmade twisty gravel road lined with Arizona cypresstrees led us to what can best be described as a casa ‘bruta’ as the Italians would say. The harsh grey cemented building with a separate dependence and run-down garage didn’t offer us much love at that point.
The ‘agriturismo’ property had been popular on the Italian holiday marketfor years and on many occasions had a ‘full’ sign on the door. After closing the business some years ago, the property and land had started to look run down and certainly required some loving. The view and the location however sold it to us and took us all of five minutes to make our decision, within six months we had signed sealed and delivered our dream.
Casale Zeno is now a working organic olive farm with two separate and independent spaces for you to call home during your stay. Casa Isla and Casa Eva named after our eldest granddaughters.
