Not just another rental: an old stone house above the sea at Zoagli.

A special house among the olive trees of Zoagli

On the hillside at Zoagli, nearly two hundred metres above the sea, stands Rosemary Stone Cottage. Around the house lies a little over a hectare of olive grove, all of it terraced and held up by dry-stone walls: a landscape built by hand, one generation after another.

Here you are tucked away in greenery and quiet: the only thing that passes in front of the house is an ancient stone footpath. And yet the beaches and the life of the Tigullio are just a few minutes' drive away.

It was once a small, poor farm. The people who lived here made their living from the olive trees and their livestock: on the ground floor were the cellar and the rooms for storing what the land produced, and a short way off stood the stone hayloft. The walls of the house are stone, a metre thick. We don't know exactly when it was built, but it is probably more than 150 years old.

When our family bought it, it had stood empty for many decades. The restoration of the early 1990s set out to preserve its character: the stone showing through the rustic plaster, the slate roof, the hand-crafted woodwork.

In 2027 the house is being let for the first time, for a few short periods only: the rest of the year it is home to our family.

This place is special to us, and we would like to share it only with guests who are just as special.

Luisa, Alessandra and Gian Luca