{"id":103946,"date":"2025-08-30T23:59:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/103946\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T23:59:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:59:18","slug":"a-seaside-home-in-puglia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/103946\/","title":{"rendered":"a seaside home in Puglia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photographs by\u00a0Ingrid Rasmussen<\/p>\n

Growing up in the fishing hamlet of Santa Caterina in Nardo \u2013 situated in the Salento region of Puglia \u2013 in the 1990s, architect Eugenio Minerva was fascinated by\u00a0his grandfather\u2019s tool shed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather, Otello, was a master mason and he enjoyed making models out of local stone,\u201d says Minerva. \u201cI was always attracted to what he did and the environment in which he worked, so much so that I\u00a0started to dabble as well. My passion for architecture was born from these moments of play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Coasting: <\/p>\n

Coasting: the house overlooks the coves of the hamlet of Santa Caterina<\/p>\n

Two decades later, with an architecture degree from the University of Venice IUAV and training in California under his belt, it was in Nardo that Minerva, now 32, chose to break ground on his own stone masterpiece. Handed the keys to a small 1970s house that his parents had bought some years before, he embarked on an ambitious renovation. It was completed two years later, in 2021.<\/p>\n

Affectionately known as Casa Porthole, the house sits on the seafront overlooking this quiet corner\u00a0of the Ionian coastline. It takes its name from the\u00a0giant porthole window on the first floor, conceived, designed,\u00a0and installed by Minerva. It is \u201cthe emblem\u201d of\u00a0the house, he says.<\/p>\n

\"Holding <\/p>\n

Holding pattern: the kitchen with oak fittings to offset the blue scheme<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all my projects there is always a main element,\u201d he says. \u201cWith Casa Porthole, I wanted to bring the culture of the sea into the house, to remove as much distance from it as possible. The porthole window is a bit like a telescope in that it has an elementary geometry that recalls the sea. It is in the most hidden place in\u00a0the house, the most silent \u2013 it is my think tank.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-year renovation programme involved a\u00a0complete re-modelling of the interiors and second-floor extension to create a compact one-bedroom dwelling that was fully equipped, but also achieved a\u00a0minimalist sensibility. Carving out this modern living space required smart solutions. The first was to arrange the living spaces on split levels. The living area is an open-plan, living-and-dining room, with a raised level for the built-in oak\u00a0kitchen featuring what Minerva describes as a \u201cwalnut travertine monolith\u201d island. \u201cI\u00a0love living materials,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"Sweet <\/p>\n

Sweet dreams: the minimalist split-level bedroom<\/p>\n

Behind this is the central staircase, carved out of one solid piece of stone. It leads the way to the bedroom, which features the porthole window and an island bed of Minerva\u2019s own design. The small ensuite bathroom is \u201ccompressed as if we were in a small boat,\u201d says Minerva, \u201cclad entirely in white resin and with a few material details, such as the shower tray in teak slats and\u00a0its oak ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The primary objective for this seaside home was verticalism, gaining height wherever possible. \u201cVertical development was a key element of the project,\u201d says Minerva. \u201cThe desire was to go higher and higher, to observe, as if the dwelling were a coastal tower.\u201d He insisted on the wraparound terrace that enjoys views across the rocky coastline, largely unchanged since his childhood, with fishing boats bobbing on the sea, then as now.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome into this house and you experience this sense of moving between levels and light \u2013 an ascent between stairs of different materials, lights, compressions and design, to reach the summit and enjoy the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"On <\/p>\n

On the way up: stairs leading up to the porthole window<\/p>\n

The style of Casa Porthole was influenced by its local marine environment and the easygoing nature of its coastline that boasts rocky enclaves and tranquil sandy beaches as opposed to the exquisitely preserved Baroque architecture that the old town of Nardo is famous for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe geometry is dictated by the orography of this landscape and by an integration of simple volumes that create different environments through compressions and decompressions,\u201d he says, explaining how the size of the rooms and the use of the colours gestures to the mountainous landscape.<\/p>\n

Aside from the navy blue kitchen, which features a patterned tiled floor by Bisazza, the house has exclusively white-washed walls that prove to be so popular in coastal Italian dwellings, and resin floors softened with the occasional hessian rug.<\/p>\n

\"Old <\/p>\n

Old and new: vintage furniture in the dining room<\/p>\n

\u201cThe palette is not just a mere aesthetic gesture, it\u2019s much more than that,\u201d he explains. \u201cThere are spaces \u2013 the kitchen, the living space and so on \u2013 that have the function of balancing our mood, and rooms that need to be darkened to frame the outside, to give the idea of compression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sparsely but considerately decorated, the effect is one of charming simplicity and a modest personal space for Minerva who has lived here for the last three years. His discreetly arranged personal belongings include books neatly lined up on a bookshelf of his own design, ceramics by local Pugliese company Col\u00ec, and a portrait by an artist friend. They mingle with iconic Italian home-design accents, such as lighting by Flos, Foscarini, and Artemide, and more recent accents from Ikea and Zara Home.<\/p>\n

The mood here, he says, is completely dictated by Nardo\u2019s life-source for centuries, the sea. \u201cThe house changes according to the sea and by the changing light, the reflections, the sounds. It becomes more important to observe than to live, this is what I like.\u201d It is, as he puts it, an eclectic home, one \u201cbased on simple geometries, light and shadow\u201d. He imagines it \u201ctaking on a life of its own depending on who lives in it. \u201cIt\u2019s as if it were a\u00a0house always under construction, where those who live in it make it their own, through objects brought from their various travels, passions and family\u2013 a sort of hard disk in contemporary terms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photographs by\u00a0Ingrid Rasmussen Growing up in the fishing hamlet of Santa Caterina in Nardo \u2013 situated in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-103946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}