New York City-based restauranteurs Shelly and Marilyn Fireman had been going on vacations to Tuscany for more than 30 years. They once looked at houses to rent via faxes from travel agents. Their favorite place to stay was in the region’s northwest, in the hills between Lucca and Versilia. They kept coming back for the culture, artisans and sense of community — and for inspiration regarding cuisine that they could take back to the Italian restaurants they ran in the U.S.
In 1998, the owners of Bond 45 and Cafe Fiorello bought a vacation home in the city of Camaiore — a 300-year-old villa that sits between the Apuan Alps and the Tyrrhenian sea.
“It was always a working vacation, but for us, work is eating, so it’s not too bad,” jokes Marilyn Fireman. “We would have our chefs come meet us there, we’d find new recipes and ideas, and we’d have them work in local restaurants while training for us.” During the past summer, their executive chef, Brando de Oliveira, visited to spend time with them.
Now, 25 years after they bought the villa, the Firemans have listed the six-bedroom, seven-bathroom property through the real estate company Knight Frank for €6.9 million ($7.3 million). It includes 5,700 square feet of living space, two annexes that can be used as guest houses, a 45-foot heated pool, an olive grove and an outdoor kitchen for entertaining.
Fireman, who now spends her time between Lincoln Square in Manhattan and Bedford in New York’s Westchester County, says she loved having a vacation property in Italy but notes all the work entailed in having a second home in another country.
An interior designer, Marilyn spent three years renovating the property with a team of Italian contractors and a general contractor who spoke English. The property had been modernized before she bought it — and this posed the biggest problem.
“Someone did a lot of work on the property in the 1970s, and in the process, they ripped out all the terra cotta tiles and wood beams. And it was truly horrible,” she says. “My friend said, ‘You can’t buy this house, it’s too ugly,’ but I had a plan: We bought old terra cotta, tiles and wood, and took it back to the splendor of what it was.”
The two annexes on the property were just “open barns,” so those were blank slates for her to work with. She recalls being told by the contractor that there was only place for a spiral staircase if she wanted to add a second floor to one of the annexes, so she bought an antique piece she didn’t love.
Later, the contractor remeasured and said she could have a stone staircase after all. While singing opera music, the contractors built the staircase she had wanted in the span of a day. Overall, she says the renovation project was “wonderful,” adding that it helped to be in an area famed for stonework and sculpture.
“Unlike a lot of Tuscany, you don’t have to drive 45 minutes for great restaurants and bars, either,” Fireman says. “Where we’re at, you’re just 15 minutes away from the beach and the bars of Pietrasanta.” She adds that it takes under five minutes to get to a mom-and-pop restaurant, so the new buyers will have plenty of options for places to eat.
What she’ll miss most about the property, she says, is sitting on the portico with a view toward the sea and mountains behind her.
“The great thing about the positioning of the house is that you get an incredible breeze, so even when it’s really hot — as it has been the past few summers — it’s still cool enough to enjoy being outside.”
She hopes that whoever buys the property will keep the housekeeper. The Firemans also employ a local nonna (grandmother) as a part-time cook, so new owners should be able to enjoy the best of local Tuscan cuisine without having to leave the villa.