A once-forgotten manor house and its gloriously restored gardens in Italy's verdant Emilia-Romagna region
‘It was a sleeping beauty,’ says garden designer Gianmatteo Malchiodi of La Colombarola, the house nestled in the Terre Verdiane of Parma, Italy. He first encountered it as a teenager when growing up in a nearby village; it ‘had originally been a 16th-century fort within a moat [before being] turned into a hunting lodge in the 19th century by the Pallavicino family, one of the oldest families in Italy’, he says. ‘The garden was totally wild. Everything was covered by climbing plants but you could still see the remnants of the old drawbridge. I fell in love; it was utterly captivating.’
The house had, at one point, been in the hands of another ancient family but it had been lost to them over generations and subsequently abandoned. But Gianmatteo never forgot the enchanted fortress and, in 2020, decided to visit it. ‘It was just as I remembered, a time capsule locked in nature,’ he recalls, ‘and there was a “For Sale” sign outside.’ He purchased the property in 2022, and he and his partner, Andrea Magni, spent two years bringing it back to life.
Resurrected, La Colombarola is a reverie, glimpsed through trees within a fragrant garden – a cornucopia contained within the architectural lines of clipped box hedges. Roses burst into colour, the tendrils of vines creep up walls and over weathered doorways, and in the shade, hydrangeas bow their heads in clouds of bloom.
Here, the couple live happily with the seasons, a slow, rewarding way of life, which they share with others – the pair run a small bed and breakfast, opening ‘one or two rooms’ to clients and guests.
Gianmatteo refers to the garden as his botanical testing ground. ‘I wanted to create a contemporary garden but inspired by the classical French influence from the 18th century prominent in this area. I decided to use espalier trees and create what the French call a jardin de curé [a “priest’s garden”],’ he says. ‘La Colombarola is not a palace – it is a small manor house, similar to a vicarage, and I loved the idea of connecting it to the church nearby.’
He’s divided the garden into four outdoor rooms. ‘There’s a gravel entrance courtyard lined by topiary, and the next room features the espalier trees. There’s a room with boxwood and perennials as well as a small shade garden,’ he continues. ‘I like to use structure in my gardens. We also have a meadow at the back with apple and pear trees.’
Gianmatteo and Andrea have transformed the interior of the house with a lighter touch. ‘It was forgotten but the structure was sound, so it was a matter of restoring what was there,’ Gianmatteo ω says. ‘I wanted it to look like it had always been lived in, without the formality typical of many Italian houses.’
Much like the garden, each room unfolds through joyous colour: the golden-yellow walls of the home’s entrance and sitting room shift into a distressed lilac-blue in the dining room and a pale plaster shade in the kitchen, while upstairs the hues deepen to rich reds, greens and blues – ‘colours typical of interiors in this part of Italy’, says Gianmatteo.
Here, in his magical fortress, Gianmatteo feels a sense of place and belonging. ‘The first thing I do in the morning is go into the garden. I like that I don’t have to travel for my work,’ he smiles. ‘We have a lady from the village who cooks for us, and we sit down at the table for lunch and dinner. It’s a very Italian thing to do but important to us.’ This ritual spurred Gianmatteo to create a small collection of artisanal tableware pieces for the house, designed with a friend, which reference his gardens and the surrounding countryside. ‘We use the pieces every day,’ he says.
Gianmatteo and Andrea’s embrace of Italian-style ospitalità has encouraged them to share more of their corner of the world. They’re now creating an online store using their knowledge to sell antiques, and planning to create four extra B&B bedrooms in an outbuilding. Gianmatteo smiles, ‘This is the “Food Valley” of Italy, a UNESCO site of gastronomy. We want others to love it as much as we do’.
Rooms from £131 per night; lacolombarola.com
Gianmatteo Malchiodi’s Parma address book
The local area is wonderful. We’re very close to Parma, which has a magnificent museum and the Palazzo della Pilotta. We’re also near the Rocca Sanvitale castle in Fontanellato, which has incredible frescoes painted by Parmigianino.
Nearby Cremona has a Baroque music festival in June, the Monteverdi Festival, and in September-October, Parma has Festival Verdi – Giuseppe Verdi was born in a village called Roncole, not too far from the house.
Ristorante Colombo Polesine Parmense is the best restaurant in Parma. I also like Trattoria La Buca: it’s more than 100 years old, run by generations of women, and in a 17th-century house.
There’s a beautiful flea market, the Cose d’Altri Tempi in Cortemaggiore, a Renaissance ‘ideal city’ of the Emilia-Romagna. There’s also an antiques fair in Parma, the Mercanteinfiera, which is one of the biggest in Europe, and is held twice a year in March and October.
Francesco Dolfo1/3A 17th-century Brussels tapestry adorns a sitting room wall. The cushions are by L’Atelier Délabré and Les Ottomans, and the lampshades are made from Indian saris. The deer-antler ottoman is 19th-century.
Francesco Dolfo2/3The dining room features limewashed walls, a Luigi XVI Parmigiano table and late-18th-century Marchigian chairs.
Francesco Dolfo3/3The first-floor gallery features a kudu trophy, pendant lights by Patrizia Giuliani and a terracotta floor dating from the 16th century.
