Why We Bought The Nook
The Nook started from a conversation about tiny houses, small spaces and the discipline of design. Two people with a desire to see a beautiful, physical, tangible space come into being from a shared interest, passion and sense of adventure.
We are Rocco and Zaffrin. We live in very different places, one of us in Gallinaro and the other in London. We talked about what a small house designed by us might look like and realised we both wanted to create something unique and beautiful, so we decided to explore the idea further. From one conversation an adventure began.
We originally started looking at stone houses for sale in the Comino Valley. We thought rebuilding one could be a wonderful project, reclaiming stone, beams and old craftsmanship. We looked at land, houses and some real fixer-uppers. In Settefrati we viewed a couple of properties, one piece of land that would have been a genuine labour of love but not quite what we wanted just yet. Another consisted of two stone houses pushed together on the most delightful street, but the renovation would have been enormous and the spaces felt awkward and difficult to solve.
We had also seen the little stone house that would become The Nook in San Donato and we really loved the house and location. San Donato is a pretty Italian hill town. Medieval, beautiful and full of character, it sits proudly on a hillside with narrow streets and beautiful stonework. San Donato was historically known as the village of the “stonemasons" and the craftsmanship can be felt in the town’s identity. The Nook stands just off a central piazza, surrounded by cobbled lanes and a quiet courtyard.
The Nook is a thin three storey house and unlike anything we had seen before. We loved the details. The beautiful green wooden doors, the limestone arches and the groin-vaulted cantina. Features that felt magnificent and unexpected in such a small building. However it was tiny and on a first viewing hard, to imagine how the space could be reinvented. There was no bathroom, we couldn’t see how we could fit in a shower and the top two storeys and the cantina were connected by an external staircase.
The Nook had been on the market for more than a year and we wondered, was it simply too small. Could anyone realistically design around a footprint like this? So we continued our search. We drove around San Donato, looked at farmhouses and viewed another small stone house in Alvito. Every property had something going for it. But every conversation between us somehow came back to The Nook. Where the shower might go. Whether the cantina could become a kitchen. Whether a platform bed might work upstairs. Without really noticing it, we had started designing a house we didn't own.
We viewed the Nook at least four times before making an offer. One visit was devoted to taking measurements because so much hinged on whether there was enough room to solve some fundamental design challenges. Another was with a geometra (a surveyor and bit more than that). Another time was simply because we couldn't stop thinking about it and we took a friend partly to show them and partly to test whether our enthusiasm had completely overwhelmed our judgement. Rocco spent his time crawling around the roof, checking tiles, looking for signs of damp and trying to understand how the building had been put together. Zaffrin poked around the shutters and spent considerably more time than was probably reasonable thinking about the under-stair toilet and whether it could be transformed into something more elegant.
On every visit to the house, the more we found ourselves wondering about the people who had lived there before us. Who built the house? When? Who had walked through that green door over the last few hundred years? What had life looked like for the people who had called this tiny space home? We found ourselves imagining what each floor might become and how we could preserve some small connection to the building's history. Some of the happiest hours were spent discussing how everything might fit. Designing the kitchen and dining area in the cantina. Working out a bespoke bed. Debating lighting and how best to highlight the vaulted ceilings. We would be discussing another property entirely and somehow end up talking about The Nook again.
Looking back, I think that was probably when we knew.
We made a rough budget for the Nook, discussed legal fees, taxes and renovation costs and satisfied ourselves that what we wanted to do was achievable. Both of us wanted to create something beautiful, but also something practical. The idea and the pragmatism always went hand in hand. We showed the house, along with several others we were considering, to architects and designers. Like us, they all fell in love with The Nook. It was demanding, unusual and the sort of project where every detail would matter.
When we finally decided to make an offer on the Nook, there was no hesitation that this was the house we wanted. We also agreed that we would not overpay for it. Our first offer was rejected. The sellers were holding out for the asking price and we did not hear anything for over a week. Zaffrin found the waiting uncomfortable. Rocco, who understands the rhythms of Italy far better, was considerably more relaxed. Looking back, the delay was probably useful because it forced us to confront a simple truth. We didn't just want a house like The Nook. We wanted this house. We waited two weeks before making another offer. After one more small move, a few days later it was accepted. We were delighted and, if we're honest, a little nervous too.
