Over 20 million euros will
be invested for Villa Bibbiani, in the Capraia e Limite
municipality of the Florence province.
The historic estate renowned for its botanical garden was
sold by Lionard Luxury Real Estate for about 10 million euros to
an American baron.
The company noted that the investor had pledged to spend an
equal amount on restoring the villa as well as on setting up a
new agricultural estate for wine and oil production and
supporting cultural activities in the area.
The estate consists of 380 hectares of terrain with a scenic
owner's villa boasting two towers alongside a farm with canteens
and stables covering 9,800 square meters. There is also a
20-hectare botanical garden with exotic Oriental plants and a
romantic park dating back to the nineteenth century.
The villa, cited for the first time in a 1546 document that
called it the "feudal lands of the Frescobaldi family", remained
in the hands of the noble Florentine family until 1809, when -
on the death of Anastasia Frescobaldi - it went to her son,
Cosimo Ridolfi (1794-1865).
Ridolfi, who was a well-known public figure in that era,
created the botanical garden and the romantic park adjacent to
the villa, containing some 195 varieties of camellias.
"Americans have, in recent years, resuming buying in the
luxury real estate market in Italy," noted Dimitri Corti,
founder of Lionard Luxury Real Estate. "And in regions other
than Tuscany, which is still one of the most popular, such as
Piedmont in highly valued areas such as Monferrato, where we
sold one of the most famous castles of the region, in Camino."
The buyers, the real estate company said, not only purchase
real estate "of great historic and cultural value to make them
their homes, thereby safeguarding heritage that is part of this
country's identity. They also invest in productive activities,
reactivating an economy and creating jobs".
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