At First Sight
The house we live in is our third home in Mondovì. When we arrived from Tbilisi in August 2012 we rented a small flat in an old building at 51 via Vico, one of four streets leading to Piazza Maggiore. The renovated flat was charming, our landlords were kind and generous people, and we were comfortable there for the first year. Once we found our house and committed ourselves to the project, we moved to a larger, modern apartment with two bedrooms and a wide balcony with views toward the nearby Alpi Marittime.
In March 2013, while my husband, Jim, was away on a consulting job in Africa, I attended a bagna cauda dinner sponsored by the Amici di Piazza, a community group. Seated with new friends, a couple from England, I tried with little success to follow the talk flowing around me at the long common table while I dipped various raw and cooked vegetables into the “hot bath” of olive oil, melted anchovies, and garlic. My friend Jane was chatting with an older Italian of her acquaintance. “My friend,” she said, “might like to buy your little house.” The man chewed thoughtfully before answering, “I’d have to ask my sister.” And that was the first I knew of a nearby house that might be for sale. I had never seen the house, wasn’t sure where it might be, but Jane thought it might be a possibility for us.
Two months later my husband and I went to visit Jane and her husband David at their house, where renovations were nearly complete. We walked down via Vico, turned left and continued downhill past a complex of modern apartment buildings and an old, uninhabited farmhouse. We had never walked this street before. We turned right at a corner where another house sat empty and silent. Across the bottom of the next bit of steeply sloping asphalt, an old wall of stone and brick ran perpendicular to the road. Two weathered wooden doors, one for people and the other for mule-drawn wagons, increased a sense of mystery that had begun to pique our curiosity. We turned right again, onto a neglected dirt road, and peered through rusty wire fencing into a sun-filled, overgrown yard bordered with trees and shrubs. The small house stood in profound stillness, wooden doors and shutters closed up tight. Concrete stairs with an iron railing climbed to a second story. The façade, with two little buttresses jutting either side of a central doorway, was several different colors of masonry where time had done its work. Connected to the far side of the house a sort of covered passageway formed an ell built of dark timbers and heavy brick pillars. Trees and tall grass crowded the perimeter, but two yellow rose bushes stood outside the doors and a vine-covered pergola shaded a rickety table. This was more than mystery, this was enchantment. We tore ourselves away and continued walking to meet our friends. While we described the place Jane said, “Oh, but that’s the little house I was telling you about!” Mystery solved.
The next week, we visited a real estate office to locate the property owners and find out whether they might consider selling.
