Villa Cardo

Villa Cardo sits outside Carovigno, in the stretch of Puglia between the white hill town of Ostuni and the Adriatic. It's arid, low country, olive and almond groves, dry-stone walls, whitewashed towns, with the sea less than ten minutes away. The protected beaches of the Torre Guaceto nature reserve are within a quarter of an hour, Ostuni fifteen minutes, and Lecce, the baroque city they call the Florence of the South, about thirty. It's also a serious food region: the Carovigno festival at the end of July, the Ceglie Messapica food fest in August, and the Saturday market in Ostuni.

The house was designed by Andrew Trotter, whose Masseria Moroseta nearby set the template for a whole generation of Puglian design stays, and it works the same way: traditional building methods, local materials, and the regional vernacular allowed to do the talking rather than being decorated over. Whitewashed limestone, stone floors, arches, a series of half-levels and staircases, and almost nothing in the way of ornament. The master bedroom opens onto its own veranda and garden with an outdoor bath. Downstairs there's a media room and a hammam. Beyond the main house, an old lamia, the vaulted stone shelter you see all over this landscape, has been kept and turned into a room for two. The outside is really the main event: a pool, an outdoor kitchen with a wood-fired oven, a long dining terrace, and a roof terrace looking out to the sea.