12 Bed Villa for sale
Bertinoro, Forlì-Cesena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
£8,661,966 *
[€9,950,000]
Full Description
The hills of Romagna have, in the early evening, a particular quality of light — warm, unhurried, the kind that makes you forget what you were supposed to be doing. This stone and water retreat sits immersed in that light, on a gentle rise above Forlimpopoli, two kilometres from the medieval borgo of Bertinoro, and has done so since the 17th century.
The estate was built on — and takes its name from — an ancient Roman thermal site along the Via Consolare. Consuls once stopped here. The instinct to pause, to restore, to let the eye travel across the plain towards the Adriatic, seems to be written into the land itself.
The main villa, restored with patience and an evident dedication to quality, unfolds across three levels without ever feeling forced. On the ground floor, the rooms flow into one another with the natural ease that old Italian houses express at their best — a salon with fireplace, a formal dining room, a kitchen opening directly onto a loggia with an outdoor table and a brick barbecue, clearly lived-in and used with conviction. A fully self-contained guesthouse is discreetly integrated within the structure, with its own independent entrance for those seeking greater privacy.
Upstairs, seven bedrooms occupy the first floor, anchored by two principal suites with walk-in closets and bathrooms finished with Jacuzzi and shower. Two of the smaller rooms connect internally — a useful and quietly considered solution. In the attic, one final room stands alone above everything, with the kind of silence that is becoming increasingly rare.
What distinguishes this estate from other properties of comparable scale is the annex — a contemporary building reached from the main villa through a vaulted underground tunnel. The transition is deliberate: stone, shadow, then the sudden arrival into a space built around a 60 m² indoor pool, mosaic-lined, heated, with large windows overlooking the garden and, beyond it, the outdoor pool. A bar, lounge areas and a gym; a sauna and Turkish bath; a professional kitchen. The annex works as a self-contained world, and the tunnel connecting it to the 17th-century villa is, in its own way, the most honest summary of this property: two centuries in dialogue.
Outside, a 120 m² pool occupies the formal garden, reached from the rose garden above by a marble staircase along which water flows on both sides. The 1.4-hectare park is Italian garden design carried out with genuine care — linden avenues, fountains, terraced viewpoints, with the Adriatic visible on clear days. Beyond it extend nearly 10 hectares of vineyard and agricultural land, currently leased, with further development potential.
This is Emilia-Romagna at its most complete: the food, the landscape, the light, and now, for the right custodian, one of its finest private estates.
Forlì Airport is twelve minutes away, Bologna just over an hour and the Adriatic coast twenty minutes.
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