Historic palazzo in Salento

At its centre lies a walled Mediterranean garden, a green and quiet world of mature citrus and fig trees, cascading bougainvillea and a tall fan palm. A twenty-metre lap pool runs the length of a wooden sun deck, with loungers set beneath the shade of the trees. A stone pergola shelters a long table laid for twenty, there is a second lounge among the cactus and dry-stone walls, an outdoor barbecue and terraces that catch the light from morning to evening.

Indoors, the house is made for gathering. A fully equipped kitchen and a generous dining table sit alongside a second outdoor kitchen and pantries, so long lunches spill easily between house and garden. There is a music room with a piano, library nooks set into the thick stone walls and quiet corners for reading. Every space balances the atmosphere of a centuries-old building with the comforts of a modern one: generous, luminous and quietly luxurious.