How shoe designer Francesco Russo remodelled a rustic masseria in Puglia.
To appreciate Francesco Russo’s capacity for detail, one only has to glance at the swimming pool at Masseria Palaci, the traditional fortified farmhouse in Puglia, Italy, he has spent the past 13 years restoring. At 25 metres, it is competition-standard, but it’s the uncanny resemblance to sea water that makes this piscina uniquely alluring.
“If you do grey walls, the water goes blue; if you do brown, the water goes green,” explains Russo, a 47-year-old shoe designer with an instinct for. “But I wanted the colour of the water at Castro Marina, a town south of Lecce. So I went to the beach, took a stone from a depth of 1.4 metres, which was the depth of the pool, and I took it to the pool guy and he painted it by hand.” The result is a multifaceted turquoise that ripples from sea foam to sapphire and is unmistakeably Adriatic.
On summer weekends guests disrupt the stillness with parties, but generally, Russo insists, life is quiet. “Before, there was stress, and it was like a massive black hole that takes away from creativity,” he says, explaining his decision to relocate to Puglia during the pandemic – and then to stay on, basing himself here for the majority of his time. Although he is working fewer hours, he finds he is more productive. “To empty your brain and just recentre, it’s something very precious.
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