When I was little, I would love to watch princess movies and imagine myself living in a castle, with an infinity of dresses to choose from, surrounded by a breathtaking landscape and spending my time with animals and objects that had the ability to speak. As the years went by and I grew up, that fantasy slowly was shoved into a corner of my memories. Even though it grew smaller and smaller, that ideal dream that had occupied such a big part of my imagination as a kid, has never been fully erased and, regardless of it ever becoming true, it is a part of who I am and who I have become.
The moment that I laid my eyes on Matilde and Alex’s house in Salento, that exact fantasy was immediately brought to life. Surrounded by the beautiful Italian countryside, Matilde and Alex have turned a 16th-century tower into their home. The tale dates back to 2022, when the pair traveled to Salento to visit Matilde’s cousin in his masseria. “We were walking around in the country, and we saw the tower”, they reminisce, “We immediately fell in love”. By chance, or by destiny, the tower was for sale and they did not hesitate to buy it.
Once the house was theirs, they decided to move there to follow the construction site and to accelerate the process. However, in the midst of the renovation, their lives took a turn: “Initially, we had planned on making it a second residence, but in the end we decided to move permanently”. Leaving their home in the fast-paced city of Milan, they moved to the relaxed rhythm of Salento. “We fell in love with the country’s way of life”, they explain.
Not only did they switch from the city to the country, but they went from a traditional home to living in a 500-year-old tower. A decision that was based on feeling. “You feel an energy in the tower, you can breathe the history inside”, they describe, “There’s really something special about it, almost unexplainable”. When entering the space, one feels a powerful sensation: “It’s like when you go into a church or an old palazzi”. Added to the good location, the people around them, and the land that surrounds them, the decision was easy to make. They both underline the same characteristic: “It’s incredible how the tower can make you feel so safe”.
Preserving that feeling of history was Matilde and Alex’s challenge when renovating the place: “We wanted to maintain how it felt in the beginning”. With the goal of keeping the ancient nature of the tower, the owners didn’t alter the organization: “the internal structure was already perfect, and we kept it like that”. A structure that allows a magical interplay with the illumination. Two openings in the West and in the East of the tower create a beautiful deposition of light coming in at all times of the day: “You open the door and it feels like nature is integrated into the house”.
Even though the originality of the tower was always the aim, Matilde and Alex incorporated certain touches that make this their home. “Our objective with the design is to always try to bring new materials, like wood”, they point out. Incorporating natural and good quality materials is part of the pair’s philosophy in all of their projects, and the tower is one of them. The result is a unique, clean and elegant space that creates the perfect environment for the new and the old to coexist in harmony.
A work of art that pays tribute to a 16th Century construction and that has been transformed into an unreal cocoon where a strong sensation of protection is combined with a powerful feeling of history. The tower in Salento represents a flawless depiction of a princess fantasy by precisely highlighting the flaws of the different stages of its existence. An ode to time, to history and to life itself.
