Trullo Piccolo

Set over 4 acres, this 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom home has plenty of outdoor space. It includes 1 original small trullo, 1 wooden building (10m from the trullo), 1 stone building and 1 glass building (set away from them in the garden).

A 100-metre-long private road leads from the bottom of the property, with your destination visible at the top. It has been designed very geometrically and intentionally with the trulli on one side and the villa on the other.

You enter into the villa’s living room, which has been built the traditional way with large stone walls. The living room opens to the dining area, which is dominated by a contemporary Varenna kitchen with an island bench top made from Calcutta marble that has a golden, slightly olive green colour to it.

As you walk left towards the master bedroom, there is a huge floating fireplace set between two walls so you can see flames 360 degrees around. I put glazing on three sides of the fireplace and added two concertina doors that lead to the master bedroom. In the day, you can unfold the doors and connect to the living room, and in the evening, you can close the doors for privacy.

The master bedroom is very large with a curved-line bed and connects to a room for doing makeup, a laundry with a washer and dryer and the master bathroom. This bathroom has a couple of nice features — a shower with a skylight that makes you feel as though you are showering outdoors and a basin area that protrudes from the house so you can appreciate the garden while washing your hands.

From the kitchen/dining area is a corridor that takes you to a wooden-built house with a Scandinavian aesthetic. The corridor is surrounded by glass, so it feels as though you are walking through the garden, although you are completely covered.

In Puglia, they used to use a lot of wood for construction. But in the last 40 years, they stopped doing that and moved towards cement. So I decided to return to the region’s roots and build a wooden lodge where the second bedroom is. This is ideal for kids or a couple as the beds can be joined together. It also has an ensuite bathroom with a shower and skylight, as well as its own verandah that looks out onto the central gardens.

The third bedroom is in the trulli. Under one cone is the master bedroom and this is connected to a second cone with a double sofa bed that is ideal if you are staying with young children. This cone leads under a stone arch to a shower/toilet area that has been carved into the wall of the trulli.

The final bedroom is in another wooden building, which we call the suite and this is the preferred bedroom for teenagers as it is detached and independent. It has an identical design/size to the villa’s second bedroom but with a double bed. I purposely created rooms that were similar in size and with ensuites so nobody ends up with the “worst room”.

Good to know: The Trullo is 10m from the wood house, and there is 1 bedroom in each, plus 2 in the stone building. Everything is accessible from ground level. The swimming pool sits on an elevated area accessible only through a pool deck 1 meter above the ground level. It is not gated or heated but has a comfortable temperature June-October. There is an electronic gate to enter the property and some 100m of private road among olive trees. WiFi is available in every building (the trullo, the wood house and the glass house) and the Trullo and wood house are fully air-conditioned.

In front of the villa and trulli, we have the infinity swimming pool, which measures 12x3 metres and is 1.5 metres deep. It is surrounded by sun loungers and we provide towels for guests to use here, as well as towels that they can take to the beach. There’s also a secondary pool (7x3 metres and 1.1 metres deep) that is loved by children.

Aside from a check-in/check-out service and the final cleaning, a mid-week clean is also included in the rate. On request, we can organise massages and airport transfers, as well as full or half-day tours of the region. We provide seven mountain bikes for kids and three for adults, which are stored under the bamboo carport so guests can take them at their leisure. There are also plenty of outdoor areas and terraces where kids can play safely around the property.

We have a beautifully functioning pizza oven and a barbecue area (wood is supplied) and we can organise a chef to come to the property to prepare lunches and dinners. For breakfast, we recommend that she leaves fresh produce for the guests so they can have breakfast in privacy. Pizza nights and fish barbecues at Trullo Piccolo are always popular, as is the “mozzarella man” who makes cheese fresh in front of the guests.

At Trullo Piccolo, we are committed to sustainability and grow a lot of our own produce, with a vegetable garden where guests can eat as many tomatoes, aubergines and zucchinis as they like during their stay. I am always challenging guests to eat so much that there is nothing left for the next guests, but they never manage to do it!

Firstly, I would recommend to walk the old villages, such as Alberobello, which is like a nativity with all its trulli. Martina Franca and Locorotondo are known for their white stone houses and hidden courtyards, with lots of little restaurants to discover.

The Valle d'Itria can be a paradise for mountain bikers, with lots of routes going up and down. You can ride for kilometres and kilometres. It’s also possible to go horseback riding and there’s a falconry centre nearby where they will train you to have the falcon flying back and forth. Around San Domenico are some beautiful golf courses where you can play between the olive groves with views of the Adriatic Sea.

Discovering the local food and culinary traditions is another highlight of any stay. It’s always a nice experience to pick produce fresh from the garden and prepare it with chefs at the property. If you’re interested in art, you can go to Lecce to explore its architecture and old churches. Puglia doesn’t have the rich artistic history of, say Sicily, but it’s the simplicity here that has caught many people’s imaginations. You don’t feel overwhelmed. It’s not overdone. That’s what we like.

I also think just being at the property is nice for families as a place to forget about work and discover the simple things in life. Although we have internet and Netflix both inside the buildings and out, it’s rare to have children glued to their iPads. More often, they are enjoying the outdoors.

There’s also something special about the light here. It has the quality of North Africa, deep and clean. It makes you feel more relaxed.