San Vito dei Normanni · Puglia
A stone house, three years in the making.
Welcoming its first guests this June.
Between Ostuni's white walls and the Adriatic, on two hectares of red earth shaded by century-old olive trees, a sixty-square-metre stone dwelling from the Regno di Napoli has slowly become a home for ten.
Three winters of patient work — old walls left to speak, a new wing added in their language.
Casa Andrea opens its doors in June 2026.
The House
A nineteenth-century stone casale, restored. Two new wings, built in its language. Together they hold five bedrooms for ten guests, arranged around a single courtyard with one olive tree at its heart.
i.
The original sixty-square-metre dwelling from the late Kingdom of Naples. Its barrel-vaulted master bedroom, its salle à manger under the old vault, its restored stone fireplace. The walls left to speak.
ii.
Three en-suite bedrooms in a new white intonaco wing — each opening onto the courtyard through its own arched door. Tadelakt walk-in showers, bidet in every bathroom, the slow pace of a Pugliese morning.
iii.
Ground floor: salon, séjour and kitchen, open-plan, opening onto the pool. Upper floor: an office perched on the roof, windows on both sides — the olive grove on one, the water on the other.
The Journey
From the day we found her — a single barrel-vaulted room watching over the olives — to the house that now stands ready. A few moments along the way.
August2022
Before a single stone is moved, the house exists in a sketch. Claudio Monnini, the architect, draws the courtyard, the preserved olive at its centre, the long pool below. Two months before we sign the papers.
October2022
Sixty square metres of stone watching over the olives, untouched since long before us. A patinated whitewashed wall, two wooden shutters, a tired wooden door. We signed the papers that month and stood, slightly bewildered, in the grass.
April2023
Six months on, the sketch becomes a watercolour. Claudio Monnini draws what will become: two new wings in the casale's language, a courtyard around the oldest olive, a pool that descends by stone steps. Almost line for line, this is what we built.
February2024
The pool basin opens in the red earth. The first concrete arrives, pumped over the wall by a long white arm. From this morning on, the new wings begin to rise beside the old one. Only the casale stands, for now.
July2025
The bedrooms emerge from two years of stonework. Lime plaster cures slowly on the walls, an arched window is set into the new wing, and the original openings of the old vault are kept exactly as they were.
July2025
The new wing opens onto the centenary grove. We spent a long time deciding how high the sill should sit so that, lying down, you could still see the trees.
July2025
Stone is laid where summer dinners will happen, the pool basin set into the lime-washed ground. Beyond, the macchia — wild fennel, lentisk, the smell of the south.
August2025
A morning learning orecchiette from a neighbour. The kind of small, ordinary afternoon Casa Andrea was built around — not an excursion, just a Tuesday.
August2025
Two chairs salvaged from the original house, set against a freshly built bench. The old furniture stays — repainted, repaired, given a new job to do.
August2025
Built-in shelving carved straight into the lime — a Pugliese way of finishing a bedroom, where the wall and the furniture are the same thing.
August2025
White walls, set arches, a courtyard taking shape between the original vault and the new wing. From this angle you can finally read what the house wants to be.
August2025
The corner of the house where the garden begins. Eight months from this photograph, the first guests will sit on the bench just out of frame.
March2026
The fireplace finds its final form: a Pugliese conical hood in white plaster above a Pietra di Trani lintel, with the built-in panca camino seat underneath. A niche in the wall to the side — the bedroom logic carried into the living spaces. Three months before the first fire.
June2026
A few more weeks to do it properly. The pool is filling. The kitchen is on. The first guests arrive in June.
More photographs and short films will be added here through May. Professional photography arrives later in the summer.
The Place
Casa Andrea sits in the gentle hills above San Vito dei Normanni, in the heart of the Valle d'Itria, on two hectares of red earth and one hundred centenary olives.
Reservation Request
For availability, rates, and a longer conversation about your stay, write to us. We answer every message ourselves — usually within a day.
Whole-house bookings only · Five bedrooms · Up to ten guests
Minimum stay six nights in high season (May – September), three nights in low season (October – April)