(CNN) — Italy has in recent years sold off hundreds of dilapidated homes for next to nothing, thanks to schemes to attract new residents triggering a wave of regeneration for rural communities.
For one man, buying a single house wasn’t enough. He bought an entire village.
Scottish businessman Cesidio Di Ciacca has just finished renovating Borgo I Ciacca, a rural hamlet dating back to the 1500s and historically named after his family.
It’s located in the wild, rugged region of Ciociaria, between Rome and Naples, at the feet of the town of Picinisco.
“At the turn of the 20th century my grandparents Cesidio and Marietta left the village in search of a better future,” Di Ciacca tells CNN. “They migrated to Scotland, leaving behind their home village which fell into oblivion for half a century.
“It was a ghost place. I started recovering it more than 10 years ago. It was a huge task but now it is finally alive again.”
Lured by nostalgia for his ancestors’ land, and after having built up his finances as a lawyer and consultant, Di Ciacca decided to return to breathe new life into the village his family had left behind and revamp its local economy.
“It was a ghost place,” says Cesidio Di Ciacca of his ancestors’ village.
Silvia Marchetti
Formerly a cluster of dilapidated farmer stone dwellings, barns and windowless storage rooms with cracked doors and unstable steps, the village now features neatly restyled pastel-colored buildings with a circular panoramic path overlooking green hills.
It hosts a wine canteen, a conference room, a library and two suites to accommodate guests longing for an unplugged bucolic stay. The estate’s vineyards grow Maturano grapes, a previously lost variety that has been recovered.
Di Ciacca was born in the fishing village of Cockenzie, outside Edinburgh, but says he always held a deep affection for his native land.
“My family never lost touch with its origins,” he says. “Each summer, as a kid, my parents would bring me here to visit our relatives. As I grew up my visits became more frequent until I decided to embark on a life mission to fully reconnect with my roots and bring back from the grave our family borgo [village].”
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