Sometimes, it’s best to leave well enough alone. And the Genoa residence of Laura Garbarino and Luca Eleuteri is well enough and then some. A grand apartment in the 16th-century Palazzo Giustiniani, it is the sort of place that any Italian appreciative of architectural glory would be happy to call home.
The building housing the couple’s home is a component of the Palazzi dei Rolli, an ensemble of Renaissance and Baroque palaces in the city’s historic center. Graced with gilt-kissed millwork and plaster moldings and decorated with frescoes, the home was in fine condition when the owners took up residence after relocating from Milan. “We moved to Genoa to have a better quality of life and because this city is special,” shares Garbarino, an independent art consultant whose career has included stints at Phillips and Christie’s. “It’s fascinating, a town of contrasts, of art and history – a harbor city squeezed between sea and mountains with a human scale.”
The building’s landmark status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site prevented the couple from making too many changes, but working with Florentine architect Francesco Maestrelli, they did make contemporary adjustments to the kitchen and bathrooms. The large kitchen supports a stout, workmanlike island made of oak that Garbarino reconceived from an old butcher’s table and a long, slightly battered table that can seat up to ten easily. The living room, adorned with fluted pilasters topped with Corinthian capitals and a ceiling that soars to 26 feet, is appointed with an appealing mix of pieces, including a 1930s sofa upholstered in blue velvet that had belonged to Garbarino’s grandmother, a 17th-century Tuscan cabinet from her father’s collection and a rosewood sideboard from the 1950s, designed by Gianfranco Frattini. The primary bedroom, crowned by a baroque ceiling, is furnished with a wonderfully varied selection of pieces, including a Gaetano Sciolari sliding wall lamp and a 1950s dressing table paired with a Mies van der Rohe chair.
The home is punctuated with contemporary artworks by Ettore Spalletti, Gabriel Kuri, Seth Price, Hamish Fulton and Francesco Lo Savio. A large, bold black-and-white work by Polish artist Piotr Janas runs parallel to the big table in the kitchen. Black-and-white photos by Trisha Donnelly and Lisetta Carmi hang in a dark and moody bathroom. Throughout, pieces worthy of a wunderkammer attract the eye: an old Olivetti typewriter, a medieval bronze crucifix, ten wooden hat forms. “Our aim was to live in a charming, ancient apartment furnished with contemporary taste,” explains Garbarino.
“We like the contrast, the dialogue between quality pieces of the past and things of today. So you will see a Renaissance cupboard next to a design of Gianfranco Frattini or a medieval cross with a sculpture by contemporary Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija.”
While clearly expressive of an informed aesthetic sense and infused with a cosmopolitan air, the apartment also exudes a genuinely relaxed aspect. The pleasure art and good design afford is evident, but it is not on display. Neither locked in time nor pressed into contemporaneity, this home is manifestly at ease in the present.
Photography by Denise Bonenti.
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