Wonderfully irregular. A mite off-kilter. Perhaps a little rough ‘round the edges. A home that is made, not rigorously orchestrated, is never picture perfect. Or formula driven. A cottage in the country can be threaded with a bit of city slickness, and a home in town might carry hints of the bucolic. The Milan digs of gallerist Matthew Noble and independent filmmaker, Pierantonio Micciarelli – a former farmhouse in the Barona neighborhood – combine a decidedly metropolitan air with warm details that echo the building’s humble past.
Built in the 1920s and surrounded by rice fields and water meadows, the property, describes Noble, “is a place where swallows build their nests, every room has a fireplace and the ceilings are high, something very hard to find in a modern city.”
Although it was in good condition when the couple acquired it, Noble and Micciarelli went to work customizing doors and window frames, while restoring the original coffered wooden ceilings and installing Brazilian ardesia flooring, whose uneven texture and varied hues (burgundy, gray, green and rusty orange) underscore the house’s pastoral roots.
Keen on flea markets and auctions, with a taste for designs of the 50s and 60s, the two have filled their home with all kinds of things, from 18th-century French night tables and Art Deco pieces to custom-made beds and couches. In the kitchen, a medical vitrine from the 40s has been repurposed as a glassware cabinet. A Postcard pendant by the Dutch artist Edwin Vlassenroot towers over a well-worn Natuzzi sofa in the living room. An altar-like fireplace is fashioned from a 16th-century Indian gate, and a simple, sturdy 19th-century table that found its way from Scotland to a Turin antique shop anchors the dining room. “One of our favorite spots,” shares Micciarelli, “is the breakfast area in the kitchen. The chairs are very plain dining table chairs from the 30s, and the wooden surface comes from an old jeweler’s table, which we cut and set into the sunny corner.”
Wall colors from Farrow & Ball play a key role in creating the home’s special character. India Yellow provides a comforting contrast to the industrial-grade components in the kitchen. “It’s warm, but not too present,” suggests Noble, “a sort of spicy, dusty feeling, evoking a souk or a smoky market in some faraway, perfumed land.” For the dining room, the homeowners opted for Bancha, an olive green. “Except for two paintings,” notes Noble, “the walls here are bare, and we chose this color to create a tranquil, neutral space in comparison to the more crowded and chaotic living room and music room.” The music room features floor-to-ceiling shelves painted a brilliant shade of red and seating from an old theater in town.
“The container, the box, is plain and rural, but the objects within are funny and strange, and some are very rare or almost unique,” observes Micciarelli. “We’ve traveled all around the world, and we have always brought something back with us – furniture, or just a piece of wood from a forest in the Amazon or a rusty bullet found in the Sinai desert.” Throughout the house, artwork (including a portrait attributed to the 18th-century Venetian painter Pietro Longhi) is hung in a charming, seemingly desultory manner. A potted plant sits on a chair. And the tipsy piles of books stacked on the breakfast table appear as if they had migrated there on their own. Homes are like this. Or they should be.
Photography by Francesco Dolfo.
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