Villa Comalcione
Monday, 03 July 2017Villa Comalcione - a complex of prestigious properties in a 15,000 square meter property - was the subject of restoration and technical-functional upgrading that provided for the adaptation of spaces to the needs of the new ownership. All the interior spaces were redesigned, a new lift was added and rooms dedicated to hosting the owner's library of historical books were created. The two buildings (Villa Comalcione and Villa San Giovanni) and the two boathouses were restored with the refurbishment of the floors, the roofing mantles, the façades (plasterwork) and the external masonry, as well as the internal installations. The park and gardens were restored, along with the bowls and tennis/soccer fields. The work highlighted some extremely difficult access problems, possible only by means of small size vehicles due to the location in the historic centre. So for the park and the boathouses, a system of mini dumpers and helicopters was used to transport the material. At times, it was also necessary to transport by hand, as in the case of the planting of the plants. A swimming pool was dug out in the rock: the excavation was conducted in a similar manual way due to the conformation of the spaces and the impossibility to access with adequate means such as traditional excavators. A crane mounted in the lake carried out the loading and unloading of the material conducted via lake using a pontoon and tugboat. Inside the main villa, the old floors in seminato were restored and those in Lombardy terracotta were recovered; in some cases, a new seminato was created. Finally, the pedestrian paths in the park have walls made with Moltrasio stones from the excavation site for the construction of the swimming pool.