Casa al Sole

“Casa al sole”. There was in that name a small grace or a small virtue. Either way, it presaged all the frenzy that good discoveries bring. A purple-red nest. A few steps preceded the old door. Then the corridor and the main staircase, which, like a spine, crossed the building at its height. Wide, balanced, maternal, it had the task of accompanying us up and down, fingers lingering on the handrail. From an architectural point of view, the property was the daughter of the rationalist spirit that spread even in Val Gardena. Built in the 1930s, from the 1960s onwards it became a mountain guesthouse frequented by regular guests. Then it became a reception centre for refugees, until Manuel, after inheriting it, turned it into a discreet, feminine inn with his girlfriend Alexandra. On those afternoons, the June light tattooed the walls in dazzling geometries of varying degrees of subtlety, and silence furnished the rooms with their slender depths. From the large windows we took in turquoise skies, portions of the Sassolungo and the peaks of the Sella mountains. The past often appeared, on the smooth floors and the thickness of the original window frames. We perceived it as a friendly time, which can still give guests a warmth of its own. The renovation was based on a threefold principle: slowness, tranquillity, serenity. We rethought the house, keeping everything that was there alive. We have created a fracture that in the end is a union. Again, there is the small library spread between the floors, raw steel, larch wood, natural stone, clay, felt, gravel, a few colours in a loop. We believe that matter itself is colour.

The mornings woke up magnificent, to the notes and voices of Mina, Caterina Caselli, Rino Gaetano, Celentano, Paolo Conte. With butter from farmer Rudi Senoner, who has two dairy cows in Ortisei, coffee from the Giamaica Caffè coffee roasting plant in Verona, jams from Alpe Pragas in Val Pusteria and cakes, bread and brioche made with sourdough from the Costa bakery in Selva Gardena. Organic yoghurt from Latteria di Vipiteno, cheeses from Cascina Lago Scuro in Stagno Lombardo in the province of Cremona and delicacies from the Alter Keller butcher’s shop in Fontanefredde in Alto Adige.

Words Meraviglia Paper. Photographs Paola Ristoldo.

Back to site top