Amarriage that lasts among film people is a rarity,” says Mayes Rubeo. “When
their marriages are in trouble, they come to Palazzo Centamori for
inspiration.”
Visit and you can see why. Her four-storey palazzo perches high in the Umbrian
hilltop town of Trevi, an hour’s drive from Perugia: it is an architectural
and historical mishmash so romantic, you couldn’t help but leave everyday
problems behind.
The entrance is a green medieval door, off Via dei Setaioli (the “street of
the silk-makers”), which opens into a cool internal courtyard set with
palms, Buddhist statues and fountains. It looks like a glamor-ous Hollywood
film set, which is scarcely surprising given that Mayes and her husband,
Bruno, have worked on some of the top films of the past three decades.
The couple’s CVs read like a history of modern cinema. Bruno, who moved to
America in 1968 from Rome, has been the art director (a role now known as
production designer) on everything from Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of
July (1989), to The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino (2004). He
received an Oscar nomination for his work on Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.
Mayes, a Mexican-born costume designer, has worked regularly with the French
director Roland Joffé, and on Hollywood productions such as Oliver Stone’s
Talk Radio (1988) and The Client (1994) with Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee
Jones. The couple met on a blind date in Mexico City when Bruno was working
on David Lynch’s Dune, in the early 1980s, and have been married for 24
years.
Names in their star-studded visitors’ book include the actor Richard Gere and
his then wife, the supermodel Cindy Crawford (“A lovely, down-to-earth
couple,” Mayes recalls. “They seemed very much in love”), and Helen Mirren
and her husband, the director Taylor Hackford, who became firm friends with
the Rubeos after Bruno worked on Hackford’s 1993 film, Blood in, Blood Out.
Mayes, 45, and Bruno, 60, work from light-filled studios that occupy much of
the palazzo’s ground floor. In Bruno’s space, relaxed shots of Russell
Crowe, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Ryan adorn the walls. Mayes’s studio,
too, is full of photographs and a copy of a preRaphaelite painting used in
the Pierce Brosnan remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, which Bruno worked on.
However, it is in the first room off the courtyard, formerly the music room,
that the walls are covered with what she considers her crowning professional
achievement: huge, elaborate feathered masks, part of the 2,500 Mayan
costumes that she created for Mel Gibson’s Apoca-lypto, released last year.
“Mel specifically wanted a Mexican designer,” she says, “and I was so proud
when he chose me. He gave me a huge break.” Gibson, who produced and
directed the film, sent her the masks as a token of his appreciation. “He is
a wonderful director – and man,” she says of the at-times controversial
Hollywood star. She, meanwhile, has just finished designing for James
Cameron’s sci-fi thriller Avatar, starring Sigourney Weaver, to be released
in 2009.
“Making costumes is what excites me, but Bruno is a pathological case when it
comes to doing up property,” Mayes says. “He took two years off work to do
up this home.” Such projects are meat and drink to them: they have also
bought and restored properties in Mexico City, Nicaragua and, closer to
home, Spoleto.
“We wanted to live in a place that had history, without compromising our
artistic taste,” Mayes explains. They bought Palazzo Centamori for €350,000
(about £240,000) in 1999 and spent another £370,000 restoring the 465 square
metre property. “I never bothered preparing a preventivo
[budget],” Bruno recalls. “I just went for it.”
The renovation, which took about three years, involved altering ceiling
heights, replastering walls, tiling floors and rebuilding staircases. It
also revealed layer upon layer of history. The palazzo, which was once
occupied by Carlotta Bonaparte, Napoleon’s niece, has Roman foundations and
13th-century water cisterns in the cellars, now used as wine storage.
While converting the large first-floor living room into a kitchen, they
discovered, under a canvas cover, a beamed ceiling that had been limewashed
300 years ago, a desperate measure for disinfecting houses during times of
plague. Under this, there were faint glimmers of colour. A specialist was
brought in, who painstakingly uncovered a pattern of 15th-century stars and
roses, and a wall fresco of bare-breasted angels and banners. Others
discovered in a bedroom next door carry Latin mottoes saying: “Love is blind
and conquers all.”
Although the couple wanted to respect the property’s architectural values,
they also wanted to be comfortable – and they’ve certainly succeeded. Their
cosy research library, on the first floor, is all warm timbers, deep rugs
and yellow sofas, and the entire home has become a showcase for their art
collection. The living room, next to the library, has original photographs
of American Indians, silk-screens of Novia Scotia, Chicano art and vibrant
oils from Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Africa. There are even paintings by Bruno:
the elegant enclosed loggia contains a cloudscape entitled Ice Cream Sky,
from the 1960s. “I think I had too much to smoke,” he says. “Those were my
hippie days.”
On the same floor, in the main bath-room, Mayes’s Mexican origins are
reflected in the Aztec-design rugs that adorn a black-tiled floor. A
stepladder leads to the blue-vaulted mezzanine bedroom. “Where we plan our
day,” Bruno says. Up a small flight of stairs, you can reach another of the
house’s five double bedrooms: a small room in the 1,000-year-old torre,
now called “Hack-ford’s Tower”, where Mirren and her husband stay. They’ve
clearly loved their Italian sojourns – so much so that they’ve bought their
own Italian hideaway, a manor house in Puglia, in the south.
Next door, in what was the attic, the Rubeos have created a media room: Bruno
is an Academy Awards judge, and needs to watch the films that are in
contention. From here, a narrow staircase leads to the rooftops, and one of
the two hibiscus-laden terraces, with views over the olive groves and
vineyards of the Vale of Umbria and Montefalco.
“One of the things we love about this area,” Bruno says, “is that there is
always something to do: a play here, a concert there.” An hour’s drive away
is Assisi, with its beautifully restored postearthquake basilica and
wall-to-wall Giotto frescoes; nearby Spoleto hosts the renowned Festival of
Two Worlds.
So, why on earth are they selling? It is Bruno’s overwhelming urge to
renovate. The couple have found a three-bedroom farmhouse, costing £170,000,
in the hills above Trevi – and expect to spend about twice that on a revamp.
“It looks like a traditional farmhouse on the outside,” Mayes explains, “but
it’s going to be all Euro-Asian style and teak floors inside. It’s a happy
place.”
Trevi, with its maze of medieval streets, cathedral piazza and family-run
restaurants, is also charming. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else now,” Mayes
says, and its residents vow that no better olive oil or truffles can be
found anywhere in Italy.
“Palazzo Centamori would really suit someone looking for Italian small-town
living,” says Roger Coombes, director of Cluttons Italy, which is marketing
the property. Given its size, it also offers good value, given that overseas
buyers should expect to pay between £500,000 and £700,000 for a restored
farmhouse in the area.
As for the palazzo, Mayes says, “I’d love to see young, artistic people living
here. It would make a great gallery space, studio, or cookery school. And
there’s great community spirit in this town – it’s like a family”.
Palazzo Centamori is for sale for £1.08m with Cluttons Italy (00 39 075 845
0100, www.cluttonsitaly.com) and
Welcomeservice (00 39 339 653 1677, www.welcomeservice.it)
Life is beautiful
- Villa Bosco, near Perugia, is a 10-bedroom palazzo that dates from the
1890s. Set in five acres, it has a stone mill, a gazebo and several
outbuildings. For sale for £2.38m with Knight Frank; 020 7629 8171, www.knightfrank.com
- This eight-bedroom restored farmhouse at Lake Trasimeno, on the border
between Umbria and Tuscany, offers views of Cortona and Montepulciano. It
has four guest suites and a swimming pool.For sale for £1.7m with Cluttons
Italy; 00 39 075 845 0100, www.cluttonsitaly.com
- Casale Degli Archi, near the village of San Terenziano, is a newly built,
six-bedroom country house with a swimming pool, a sun terrace and views of
Todi. It is a 25-minute drive from Perugia airport.For sale for £810,000
with Itili, 00 39 074 298987, www.itili.com
- This one-bed, ground-floor flat in the historic centre of hilltop Spello, a
five-minute drive from Assisi, has vaulted ceilings and a private outdoor
space. Perugia airport is 15 miles away.For sale for £121,000 with Umbria
Quality House; 00 39 075 697 8286, www.umbriahouse.com
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