 This
house near Urbino was purchased six y ears ago for € 200,000.The owner
spent another € 200,000 on reno vations. Current value is € 600,000.
By
DENISE KIERNAN
And JOSEPH D’AGNESE
Special
to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL PICTURE undulating
green hillsides dotted
with olive trees, their
leaves shimmering over endless
fields of swaying sunflowers. Medieval
hill towns loom high on the sun-drenched
horizon, their terra cotta roofs
baking against an azure sky. Now
find a rundown villa for a song,
add some elbow grease, grab a glass
of red wine, and you’re on your way
to realizing a la dolce vita dream. Since
its publication in 1996, Frances
Mayes’s best-selling “Under the
Tuscan Sun” has become a sort of Bible
for would-be Tuscanites wanting to
do just this. The book details the
author’s quirky domestic adventures as
she negotiates the often-exasperating habits
of Italian contractors and
restores a long-neglected house, garden and olive grove, while collecting
recipes along the way. Followed
in rapid-fire succession by
two more books and a line of furniture, “Under
the Tuscan Sun” is now a
film starring Diane Lane (which opened
Sept. 26 in the U.S., and opens
in Europe starting in January). The
film’s imagery will no doubt
inspire a new generation of villa
hounds and pesto-seeking pilgrims in
search of a piece of property and
peace of mind. However,
the Tuscany of Ms. Mayes’s
series, while still transporting, is
hardly a real-estate bargain and
hasn’t been for some time. But the
appetite of foreigners for the Italian
countryside—where the wine flows
freely and extra virgin olive oil
spills from spigots—is seemingly insatiable. Decades
of fascination with Italy’s best-known
region have resulted in
inflated real-estate prices and
scarce affordable do-it-yourself properties
just waiting to be snatched
up. Its neighboring region, Umbria,
is already a close runner- up
in price and popularity, having absorbed
the Tuscan overspill. (The
TV movie “My House in Umbria,” based
on the novel by William Trevor,
was shown on cable television in
the U.S. in May.) |
So
where are house-hunters now
going
to find that special fixer-upper?
The
answer could well result in
a
book entitled, “In the Shadow of the
Sibillini
Mountains”: Le Marche. Or,
as
English speakers sometimes referto it, The Marches. “I tell people, ‘You
knowwhere Tuscany is, but did you know what there is
east of Tuscany?’ ” says Eberhard Fuchs, aGerman-born Le Marche resident
who has soldreal estate in the region for 13 years. Le
Marche (pronounced “MAR-kay” in Italian)lies on the eastern coast of central
Italy. Bordered
by the Adriatic Sea on one side andthe Apennine mountains with its dramatic
southern range,
the Monti Sibillini, on the other, LeMarche is increasingly a destination
for foreign house-hunters—though
many would be hard pressed to find it on a map. For years the area escaped
the stampede of Florence-today-Venice tomorrow tourists for a couple of
good reasons: “It has no magnet city,” explains Peter Greene,
a transplanted Londoner, copywriter
and Web designer who has
lived in Le Marche since 1988. In
fact, Urbino, birthplace of Renaissance master Rafaello and long considered
the gem of the region as well as one of the most fetching hill towns in
all of Italy, isn’t even reachable by
train, which cuts down drastically on
the Eurail crowd. So Le Marche
rarely makes tourists’ mustsee list, since even those who stay in Italy
for an extended period of time usually
base themselves out of centrally located
transportation hubs like
Rome or Florence. “Ninety
percent of Italy is unappealing to
foreigners,” Mr. Greene says.
“There are a few central Italian locations
which have a particular charm
that appeals to Anglo Saxon cultures.”
That said, the striking mountains, gentle
rolling hills, and sandy shore of
Le Marche have historically inspired their
own real-estate legends: When
he made it big, Tuscany’s own Michelangelo
bought land and a herd of
sheep near Urbino to be assured he would
always have casciotta, his favorite Marche
cheese. Fast
forward several
centuries, and the rising prices
in the rest of central Italy, combined with
a continuing love affair with
the country, and it appears that Le
Marche’s time has come. “It’s the best
of central Italy without the crowds,”
boasts Mr. Greene. For
now at least. “It’s growing much
more quickly than Tuscany,” explains
Le Marche real-estate agent |
Monica
Bruni. According to Ms.
Bruni,
who was born and raised in Le
Marche
before going to Rome to
study
architecture and eventually returning
home,
the last 10 years have
seen
a consistent increase in both foreign
interest
in the region and in realestate prices. The
past three years in particular, she
describes as nothing short of
a boom. One reason, she says, is the
Internet, where agencies such as
Ms. Bruni’s (www.monicabruni. org)
and Mr. Fuch’s (www.case-coloniche. com)
provide prices, lot acreage,
maps, mortgage options and
those oh-so-enticing before-andafter pictures
that make renovation look
so easy. Another
reason is no-frills Ryan Air,
which started flying from London Stansted
to Ancona, Le Marche’s coastal
capital, in 1999. “The effect of Ryan
Air can’t be denied,” Mr. Fuchs says. Ryan
Air spokesman John Rowley says the airline’s one
daily flight to and from Ancona transports an average of 100,000 visitors
to Le Marche a year.
|