PUGLIAN RETREAT
Collette Dinnigan and Bradley Cocks have restored an ancient Italian farmhouse with stunning vintage pieces, natural fabrics and the colours of the olive grove in which it sits
A 500-year-old farmhouse nestled in an olive grove has been lovingly restored by designer Collette Dinnigan
Putting down roots in Italy had never been Australian designer Collette Dinnigan and her family’s plan. After winding down her successful fashion business seven years ago, Collette and husband Bradley decided they’d take a year’s sabbatical with children Estella and Hunter, based out of Rome.
While touring around southern Italy that summer, they fell in love with Puglia. ‘We loved the area’s wildness and found the old masserias enchanting.’ While staying around Ostuni, famous for its whitewashed city perched above the Adriatic Sea, they happened across a 500-year-old farmhouse and Collette, a dab hand at renovating houses, pounced. (Her previous home, in Australia, was in Livingetc in May 2019)
Firstly, she embraced the high vaulted ceilings and thick stone walls of the former barn to create a large open kitchen and dining area around which daily life evolves. ‘When Italians visit, they all exclaim “wow, la grande cucina (big kitchen)” because as Australians, it feels natural for us to live in the kitchen but in this part of Europe, the kitchen is usually the darkest, smallest room, relegated to the maid or the cook.’
Around this space she added different wings. ‘Our wing, with the main bedroom and bathroom, then a space for children in the middle and then a third wing for guests, leading from the back of the kitchen, so that everyone has their own privacy,’ she explains. A courtyard or cactus garden attached to each of the guest rooms also further provides ‘places to disappear with a coffee,’ she adds.
Maintaining the original bones of the building was important. ‘I wanted all the old bits to stay old,’ she says. The crumbling mud used to bind the exposed interior stone walls was replaced with modern grout – ‘to keep out the damp in winter and the insects and dust in the summer,’ says Collette. New joinery was designed to reflect the style of the house’s original doors, and floors were laid with reclaimed terracotta tiles. The aged patina against the otherwise white walls feels very contemporary.
To ground the house in its locale, Collette travelled the breadth of Puglia to source beautiful linens from family-run weavers. For the distinctive Puglian ‘splatterware’ crockery, she worked with 18th-generation ceramicist Nicola Fasano (who also made and glazed the deep green tiles used for the kitchen splashback, and with whom Collette has since created her own range of hand-painted ceramics).
Furniture, art and lighting was scoured from weekend markets around Puglia and in Rome (where the family also has an apartment), including the old stone fountain now used as a sink in the guest apartment, which took eight men to lift into place.
For Casa Olivetta, so named for the house’s position among acres of ancient olive trees – ‘just being near them feels magical’ – Collette has created a brilliant flow of indoor/outdoor spaces for sleeping, feasting and relaxing. A generous shady space under a vine-laden pergola is perfect for long, lazy lunches and lively dinners that last long past midnight; around the pool, bordered by wildflowers, a cabana and sunloungers provide an escape for all-day relaxing, snoozing and swimming.
In the evening, ‘we go up to the rooftop for an aperitif to watch the sun set over the Valle d’ltria, often accompanied by the noisy swooping rush of starlings overhead, or later on to stargaze,’ says Collette. It is a house that satisfies all the senses. ‘It’s about entertaining and friends and laughter and cooking and music and good wine. Here, it all comes together with such an elated spirit and feeling of goodness,’ she beams.
casaolivetta.com, collettedinnigan.com