Our Abruzzo Property/Your Holiday For Two Villas - Time To Start Work !
We’ve got the official OK for our Abruzzo property plans – so it’s time to start turning architect’s drawings for your holiday for two villas and our house into reality !
Take a look at the view. This time next year, this will be your view of the unspoiled Abruzzo countryside surrounding your holiday for two villas.
We got the official approval for the rebuilding plans of our Abruzzo property from the Casoli comune last week. Despite some of the horror stories we've heard about grindingly slow Italian bureaucracy - and it does vary wildly from comune to comune - the process here in Casoli was slick and efficient.
We signed the compromesso - the initial 'intent to buy' agreement - on December 7 and the rogito - the final sale contract - on February 25. We submitted our planning application the following day and this was approved - thankfully without any objections or changes - on April 30. By any standards, this is quick - certainly quicker than we might've expected in the UK. Another plus-point for living in Abruzzo !
As you read this blog, we're just finalising the permits that'll allow the actual construction work to start. Before that happens, the power and water lines to the site have to be reconnected and the existing ruins have to come down. 
It'll be sad to see them go and the site cleared. Since our purchase became finalised, the ground - formerly farmland - has been undisturbed and throughout Spring it's been transformed into a giant wild flower meadow, with thousands of blood-red poppies currently providing a full-on colour sensation.
On the right is where your holiday for two villas will be built, looking over olive groves and away to the hills and mountains of the Majella in the distance. The pool will be a little to the left of the existing building.
Below are the three houses that'll be making way for our new home. Originally it was just one dwelling at the top of the slope, the home of a single family. 
Over the years, as children were born, grew up and married and the family grew, a couple more houses were added-on downhill.
Then in the 1970s, social changes led to this property - along with the half-dozen or so others in this tiny hamlet - being abandoned as families moved off the land to better jobs and better housing. But Nonna Lucia, who was born in this house in 1933 and still lives nearby, has vivid memories of what daily life was like when this was a thriving little farming community of around 130 people.
Yes, we shared the same initial thought that you probably might've done too - restore, rather than demolish. But forty-odd years of neglect and the Abruzzo elements had taken their irreparable toll on both properties and we just didn't have either the limitless time or the limitless resources it would've taken to carefully dismantle them stone-by-stone and tile-by-tile and then reassemble them. We'll be reusing and recycling as much as we possibly can from the original structures - but within practical limits.
So now the adventure starts in earnest. On Monday we'll be having an onsite meeting with our architect and engineer Gianmarco and our builders Nunzio and Marco to decide where best to pile-up the demolished houses so Pauline and I can pick through them for salvage without interfering with the start of the build.
And with that start will come gradual changes to living in Abruzzo for us; for the www.villasfor2.com site and blog. As the project takes shape, more website pages will come on-line with more details about how to book your holiday for two villa with us, how to get here - and what you'll find when you do.
We hope you'll share our excitement by watching your Abruzzo holidays for two villas take shape over coming months and we look forward to sharing this wonderful part of Italy with you very soon.
For more about great holidays in Abruzzo - go here.
abruzzo property, building a house in Abruzzo, Casoli, holiday for two villas, living in Abruzzo, Majella
Would be interested in a Vf2 in October 08.
Whats the weather like, how far to the nearest trattoria, is there a local winery, how about walks in hills and valleys, etc ?
Please advise
Brian, Dublin, Ireland
The good news is that the October weather is good and the grape harvest is in full swing. There are at least a dozen places within 5-20m by car to eat well and reasonably and we will be organising winery trips. And there are nearby walks in abundance through some of Italy’s most beautiful scenery.
The less good news is that we won’t be open in time for October 08 - but check back here often, because now work’s starting, we will have an opening date soon.