|
Villa Emo The first sight of the Villa Emo counts among the most ravishing of any country house. The portico is as noble as that of a Roman temple, yet the house is of engagingly manageable proportions with an inviting vista through to a park beyond. In place of a daunting flight of steps there is a gentle ramp with a landing allowing the owners to descend half way to meet their guests while they pause to admire the graceful arcades that extend the house into a grand composition. Completed in 1560, Villa Emo is one of the most acclaimed masterpieces of the architect Andrea Palladio, most famous for the breathtakingly beautiful church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice islanded in the lagoon opposite the Doge’s Palace. Even more than his churches, Palladio’s villas have excited the imagination of the entire Western world. Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, the palace of Pavlovsk near St Petersburg, Holkham in Norfolk and Kedleston in Derbyshire count among his many progeny. Palladio’s most surpassingly beautiful villa is the Villa Rotonda just south of Vicenza with its four identical porticoes, followed closely by La Malcontenta on the Brenta canal and the Villa Maser, famous too for its Veronese frescoes. The Villa Emo stands with them, an exquisite example of Palladio’s inspirational use of colonnades and arcades to frame and ennoble his houses. The Emo family for whom it was built are among the most ancient of Venetian noble families. There are two Emo Palaces on the Grand Canal, and the Villa Emo is claimed as the only patrician villa in the Veneto which has remained continuously in the same family since it was built. The 52 year old Count Marco Emo who is now reluctantly selling it says “I am the 18th in line of my family.” Married to an English wife, Caroline Coleridge, he also sees himself as a citizen of the world, descended from Pocohontas, the Indian Princess, through the Parish family who introduced trams to Philadelphia. The Venetian villas were not grand residences like English country houses. Most were farms, with the wings containing not kitchens, laundries, stables and coach houses but the actual farm buildings where the wine and grain were processed and stored. At each end of Emo was a dovecote. “There were doves for sending messages to Venice and others for the cooking pot” says the Count. He points to the stone paving between the entrance gates and the ramp and says “this was the threshing floor for the maize. Polenta was invented here”. Nonetheless the Villa Emo was evidently also intended for entertaining and elegant living. The entire piano nobile is frescoed by the leading Venetian painter GB Zellotti and his pupils – walls and ceiling vaults form a continuous illusion of painted architecture and landscapes filled with gods and goddesses. To a remarkable extent these rooms have remained untouched since the 16th century. The principal alteration has been the introduction of rather elegant sash windows in the 1920s or 30s with leaded panes instead of the wooden glazing bars found in England. This survival is all the more impressive in view of the fact that the house was used as a military hospital by the Allies during World War I and taken over by the German high command in World War II. “Allied bombers would use the villa as a marker on the way to attack German targets. The one victim was the archives” says the Count. Marco Emo inherited from his father in 1973. He has spent major sums on putting the house in good order – rewiring, renewing roofs, inserting additional flood protection above the frescoes. For seven years from 1992 the Emos ran a successful restaurant in the barchessa (the arcaded barn) earning a commendation when Palladio’s villas were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1994 for the lively way the villa was used. In 1997 an ambitious conversion as a hotel was carried out, with spacious bedrooms on the upper floor of the villa itself and further rooms and bathrooms in the first floor of the wings. Reception rooms, dining room and bar opened out attractively onto the arcades. But the hotel continued for a little more than a year and Marco Emo is now looking for a suitable buyer to take on this glorious inheritance. The price at £10m is undoubtedly high but he points out “Half of the asking price represents money invested in putting the house in first class order.” As well as the villa and its frescoes and the superb garden statuary, there is the 17th century Fattoria to the west, a separate house with beautiful swimming pool and further farm buildings containing a collection of farm implements gathered by his mother. In addition there is the borgo, two long ranges of low buildings just across the road from the villa. These could obviously be profitably converted as attractive small cottages and there has been interest from developers on this basis. The Count says “I am determined to find a buyer who will keep the place as an entity. If the buildings are to be sold off I will do it myself.” Given the peerless beauty and history of the villa what are the drawbacks? The count explains he has sold farmland to invest in repairs but this has left the house with just 27 hectares. The views north to the mountains and the hills of Asolo appear safe but this is a part of the Veneto where development continues to spread across the countryside. Driving here can be a slow business, though you pass the still perfect walled towns of Cittadella and Castelfranco, while to the west a quick sprint along the old Roman road will take you direct to the autostrada. Treviso airport is just 25kms away. Another criticism is that, as the Americans say, the house is Queen Anne in front and Mary Anne behind – though this is true to some extent of many Veneto villas. With 9/11 followed by confrontation in the Middle East, this is a difficult time to sell. Yet the Villa Emo is a world class masterpiece and reducing the price may not be the solution. If there is no individual wanting to live here or consortium wanting to restart a hotel, the answer might be to let the house regularly for short periods – for which it stands ready with a full catering kitchen and some of the world’s best cooking and produce immediately available. Where better to have that fabulous anniversary or birthday party? Meanwhile Marco Emo believes he has another trump. The film Ripley’s Game based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith has been filmed at the villa and may yet bring him his dream buyer.
Enquiries Knight Frank 020 7629 8171
|
