My love for old doors and windows started from the very first weeks of my new life in Tuscany nearly 20 years ago. I was always looking for postcards with windows surrounded by geranium pots or old wooden doors of charming countryside houses to send back home in Bucharest, Romania to family and friends.
For all my childhood I lived in a big city and everyday I longed for a place in the countryside where I could go play and run in the fields. My grandfather had told me stories of his family’s large farm, but the arrival of communism after the Second World War brought to an end the concept of private property. Hundreds of hectares were confiscated and decades of hard work vanished like smoke in the air.
Little did I know that my childhood dreams would come true in different country. Here I am now helping to care for a place rich in history and simple beauty like Il Poggio alleVille. My “new” countryside…
It is the entire merit of Nicoletta Gabbrielli, who carefully photographed our agriturismo a few summers ago, that I realized how many beautiful doors and windows there are here too.
During the renovation works in the mid-1990s, my mother-in-law (a former biologist specialized in wood restoration) insisted that all old doors inside the houses must be kept in place, restored and admired for their sheer beauty.
Nicoletta took some wonderful shots of internal and external windows in the sun.
She also captured some hidden doors of former stables that somehow I always ignored. Her photos helped us rediscover our place under many aspects, and we are truly grateful.
And remember: When one door closes, another opens.
