About Le Lepri

The "Le Lepri" farmhouse can be found at the heart of the Lupinetti's family farm, a farm of seventy hectares. It stands alone , at the end of a private track, deep in a bowl shaped valley..The area being part of the Fino valley region. Surrounding the house are the fields of olives , grapes and cereal. From these crops and groves we produce a small amount of extra virgin olive oil and wine for private consumption.

The farm buildings in this region were originally made of clay and straw, and Le Lepri was no exception.

In the early years of the 20th C these impermanent and totally biodegradable structures were upgraded to ones made of wood and a local terracota brick . The surviving Le lepri was built this way in 1916.

Of le lepri's history our grandfather has told us many a tale. One thing he especially tried to impress on us was how hard the life was in the countryside when he was a boy. In his youth there were many more people living in the farmhouses, close to their crops, eeking out a living from the soil. Travel was something done on foot, along the well worn dirt paths criss-crossing the hills , joining each house to another and on to the village centres. The paths that led the donkeys, the boys and their loads have long since disappeared.

In 1914 a house the size of Le Lepri would have held a family of ten . The two bedrooms upstairs would have been divided conventionally one for the parents and the other for their children. The room downstairs , which is currently a living room, was then the kitchen and all of family life would have centered around the fire , and the food cooked upon it.

That fireplace, still in its original state, has born silent witness to many a family tale. My grandfather speaks of his ancestors telling their secrets to the flames. The classic slow cooking of Italy was born from a tradition of the grandmother sitting by the fire and stirring her sauces from morning until the evening meal. and along with the stirring went the muttering. Above the fireplae we have left the hooks from which hams and sausages were hung to mature.

Both of the upstairs bedrooms are original, but the downstairs bedroom, and the kitchen were once the stables for the chickens ,rabbits and ducks.

In the 1960's the majority of farming families moved into new housing in the villages, and many of the rural buildings were left abandoned , only to fall apart.
Our family began renovating Le Lepri in 1990. Effort was made to use traditional materials to fix the holes in the roof, and only original tiles were used to lay new floors in the modernised kitchen, bathrooms and downstairs bedroom.

The work was done by a single retired master-builder with the help of the Lupinetti father and son team.

We hope you appreciate the results.