Villa Modena: bringing a 1778 stone house back to life
Before photos and the story of the works: how we restored a stone house from 1778 in the Emilia-Romagna countryside, floor by floor.
When we first walked into Villa Modena, the house had been closed for years. Built in 1778 in the hills of Emilia-Romagna, it still had its thick stone walls, its original stair and many of its doors, but every room was full of furniture, tools and dust. This is the story of how it changed, from the first survey to the last coat of lime.
What we found
The ground floor was used as storage, with low light and floors hidden under boxes. Upstairs the rooms were simple and dark, with tiled kitchens from the seventies and furniture left behind by several generations. Nothing had been changed in a long time, which meant that a lot of the original house was still there underneath.
The details worth keeping
Before any demolition we walked the house room by room and listed what had to stay: a carved stone rosette, the wooden balusters of the stair, painted beams, a small votive niche set into the stone. These pieces guided the whole design. The new work had to be calm enough to let them speak.
Opening up the house
Once the rooms were empty, the stone walls could finally be read. We removed later partitions and plaster and surveyed every wall and opening. A small excavator worked inside the house, one room at a time, to prepare the ground for the new floors.
New systems, old structure
Modern comfort had to fit inside walls that are more than two centuries old. Underfloor heating now runs below the new floors, the deep stone window openings were repaired, and the timber ceilings were restored. Most of this work is invisible today, and that was the goal.
The stair
The stone stair is the backbone of the house. We stripped it back, repaired each step and left the stone bare between lime-plastered walls. It is the first thing you see when you come in, and it now leads to three floors renovated for the new owners.
