Tour a Home in a Glitzy Coastal Area That’s Italy’s Answer to the Hamptons
Tuscany’s glitzy Forte dei Marmi “is an Italian version of the Hamptons,” as Barbara Reimelt, founder of the interior design studio Ninety Nine Group, puts it. But it’s more than a glamorous resort town, she insists. “The beauty of it is that it sits on the sea, but if you turn around you see the mountains that Michelangelo mined for his stones.”
It was against this heady backdrop that Reimelt renovated a meaningful vacation home for a jet-setting family. (The family discovered Reimelt through her work at Ralph Lauren, and are already working on a second project with her—also in Italy.) Originally, the abode belonged to the husband’s late mother, Giuliana, who had it built with her own money in 1963, an unusual move for the era. The matriarch’s imprint was palpable in every space, and Reimelt was keen to bring “Giuliana’s energy, joy, vivaciousness, and generosity into this evolution too,” as she puts it. “We wanted to feel her in this house.”
For Reimelt, the biggest challenge was the layout. The hacked-up rooms were impractical, unwelcoming, and begged for a more harmonious flow. “This is a house by the beach, but it’s not a casual beach house. It’s in this most gorgeous environment…but it needed to be more formal in terms of design,” Reimelt points out.
She responded to this challenge by opening up the living and dining areas and the previously tiny kitchen to connect them. Gathering around the table for bountiful meals is a beloved family ritual, so Reimelt took special care in the dining room, tapping Florence-based artist Monica Branchetti to envelop the walls in a magical landscape mural peppered with South African references—a nod to Giuliana’s roots—like a springbok and peacock.
The New York–based designer finds the country to be a rewarding place to work. “It’s a country that has such richness in artisans, so you can find people who do things that turn out exactly the way they are meant to be,” says Reimelt. There is an abundance of striking marble in the region (Giuliana was serendipitously related to one of the producers Reimelt turned to), which led Reimelt to cover the entire ground level floor with an elegant diamond pattern rendered in velvety finished Verde Alpi and Crema Delicato marbles. Red-veined gray marble also stands out in the kitchen, while the bathrooms showcase poured terrazzo floors in custom colors that complement the stone in each space.
Another way of honoring the matriarch was by transforming objects she owned and bringing them into the revamped space. Consider the brown and yellow glass cabinet that Reimelt had restored, ebonized, and spruced up with gold chicken wire and Farrow & Ball’s saturated Stone Blue shade that sits atop the staircase landing, or the set of four Venetian glass appliqué uncovered from storage that now grace the living room.
Old and new are intertwined throughout the residence, as Reimelt often scours antique shops for just the right finds, like the midcentury console she topped with gray marble for the narrow bathroom flanking the kids’ bedrooms, or the cabinet from the 1800s in the kitchen. Fronted with a metal grille and papered inside, it holds all the family’s silver treasures. In almost every room, Reimelt notes, there are “heirlooms put in new environments, or modern pieces that offset something old.”
Also central to Reimelt’s vision was forging a dialogue between the indoors and outdoors. Buoying the landscape courtesy of Paolo Pejrone are two distinct alfresco zones. Just off the living room is the patio, where she heightened existing bamboo furniture by painting it a moody green that matches the hue of the new facade. Previously it was white and called to mind a hospital, but after applying the emboldening shade, “suddenly, the simple architecture was able to stand on its own in a more powerful way,” she recalls.
Down the steps awaits the lower terrace, with seating placed underneath a metal pergola that promises an intimate refuge from buzzy alfresco soirees. The centerpiece, however, is the Palladiana floor that Reimelt stitched together “using smaller pieces of irregular marble like a mosaic,” she elaborates. “The terrace almost wraps the entire house. It feels like a painting.”
Forte dei Marmi, dining room1/14Monica Branchetti’s lush, hand-painted mural, the star of the dining area, is complemented by a 1930 smoked glass Murano chandelier and vintage blue and white ceramics. The table, surrounded by Knoll Eero Saarinen chairs, is strewn with the likes of a Venini Opalino vase.
2/14A second look at the painterly dining room.
3/14Above the Bertoli Marmi fireplace, a fusion of Verde Alpi and Campan marbles trimmed in aged brass, hangs a Paolo Frosecchi painting that belonged to the home’s namesake. Ninety Nine Group’s custom-designed library millwork, melding wood, brass, and straw, was brought to life by Fratelli Fiorini Arredamenti. Perched on the commode is one of Giovanna Ferrero Ventimiglia’s small enamel works from her Piccoli Smalti collection.
4/14Indoors and outdoors come together in the living room, which is dominated by a Dassi Arredamenti sectional and eye-catching Verde Alpi and Crema Delicato marble floor from Fantini Mosaici.
5/14In the rustic kitchen, custom terra-cotta tiles from Ceramica Cotto di Minturno are married with Breccia di Montecitorio red marble and Ninety Nine Group–designed millwork executed by Fratelli Fiorini Arredamenti painted in Farrow & Ball’s cool Pavilion Gray shade.
6/14Angelo Mangiarotti’s white Carrara marble pedestal sink for Agape and a 1960s Seguso brass and glass chandelier pops against the yellow walls of the ground-floor powder room.
7/14Ninety Nine Group rehabbed a cabinet, a family heirloom, and placed it in the company of an Ettore Mocchetti chair, a brass and glass lantern from the 1950s, and Monica Branchetti’s faux painted window.
8/14Underneath Bronzetto’s wall lights, Riccardo Barthel’s custom brass sinks in the kids’ bathroom are outfitted with Agape taps and backdropped by midcentury mirrors affixed to a mix of gleaming Verde Malachite, Tormalina, and Diaspro Ceramica Cotto di Minturno tiles.
9/14A dreamy Paolo Frosecchi painting and original Chiavari chairs add an old-world touch to the sky-blue-tinted son’s bedroom.
10/14Another bathroom inside the home.
11/14At the foot of a no-longer-in-production Philippe Starck bed sits a chrome-based Marta Sala Éditions bench swathed in Sunbrella fabric. Another piece of Marta Sala Éditions furniture, the Murena Light chair, is found in front of the Fratelli Fiorini Arredamenti–made closet designed by Ninety Nine Group and adorned with Jannelli & Volpi wallpaper.
12/14Patricia Urquiola’s black and white Cuna bathtub for Agape is juxtaposed with Bertoli Marmi’s soft pink Rosa Portogallo marble wallcovering in the guest bathroom. By contrast, the vanity—designed by Ninety Nine Group and fabricated by Fratelli Fiorini Arredamenti—is planted against a wall painted in Farrow & Ball’s Old White No. 4. hue.
13/14The patio’s sprawling Palladiana floor, designed by Ninety Nine Group, is paired with vintage outdoor furniture rejuvenated with Farrow & Ball’s high-gloss Calke Green paint.
14/14Alfresco hangouts unfold on white wrought-iron furniture from Riccardo Barthel.
