Ca' Veruna - a house in the heart of the Alto Garda Park

The Alto Garda Bresciano Park is the background for Studio Saramondi’s renovation project. The farmhouse to be renovated – known by the locals as ‘Cà Veruna’ – is set within a remarkable landscape and natural setting.
The building is surrounded by a vast property with rolling pasture terracing. It emblematizes the distinctive construction elements of rural mountain buildings. The basement houses the livestock quarters, with both the stables and the warehouse. On the upper floors, there is a small area to be used by the farmer and a large barn, which was traditionally used to feed the cattle during the cold season.
The client’s specific request was to restore the farmhouse with a modern twist while avoiding any actions that would alter the building’s historical profile.
Hence the idea to explore a solution that would allow for new features while still respecting its original nature. Each detail has been carefully crafted to ensure that we can still easily recognize the layers of interventions made on the house over the years. Be them constructive, technological, or interior design elements, they are all characterized by varied materials and their respective colours – such as lime, wood, and stone, which provide the background against which the new scenic subject is going to be painted.
In the basement – formerly used as stables and farming area – we can find the keeper’s flat and a small, welcoming wellness area.
Getting in through a large entrance hall on the ground floor, we find ourselves in the heart of the house. The living room is on the right, while on the left, there is a spacious kitchen; the central hall is dedicated to the service area. A light and airy metal staircase going up the mezzanine level leads to the day-area bathroom, which is concealed behind a matching panelled door.
The night area is located on the mansard level. Studio Saramondi chose to fit the mezzanines in a central position (as shown in the project’s executive sections) instead of using a gable roof so that the house’s original height can still be appreciated from every angle.
The building perimeter has been enclosed with insulated plasterboard counter-walls, which made it possible to comply with the current legislation on energy standards and, at the same time, to preserve the heritage walls from any signs of newly fitted technology. The building’s bearing walls were thoroughly cleaned, polished, and restored by filling in the original stones with calcium lime to showcase the original construction technique.
The new internal openings – as needed due to the revised interior layout – are easily recognizable thanks to the use of solid brickwork, which has been laid down using the so-called demolition and restoration technique, as well as with coated metal intradoses. The pre-existing doors – closed out of necessity – were filled in whilst maintaining the architectonic opening and differentiating the finishing material, which now consists of coarse trowelled lime.
We opted for a sawn-effect oak parquet for the living areas and large-size stoneware slabs for the bathrooms for the materials used for finishing the floorings. The original roof beams were retrieved and finely renovated to be reused as furnishing accessories – as washbasin tops in the bathroom, as headboards frames for the beds in the bedroom.
Studio Saramondi was also responsible for restoring the building’s external façades and landscaping the park. The façades have been restored whilst attempting to retain their plasterwork whenever possible; thus, some small-scale restoration work was undertaken.
On the basement floor, the pergola was manufactured using chestnut wood (the typical one from this area, commonly used in such constructions). We devoted extra care not to tie the pergola to the adjacent walls, to ensure that it is easily visible from a volumetric point of view, and to protecting the original plaster of the building’s façade.
A swimming pool has been placed next to the house to meet the client’s requirements, consisting of a single-piece tank with a cement-effect porcelain stoneware finish both inside and out, thus recalling a traditional cattle drinking trough.
An adjacent furnace was uncovered following an excavation prompted by the discovery of a curved masonry section. The furnace has been finely recovered and remodelled into a barbecue grill.