(mellow guitar strumming)
When I was a very small girl,
one of my first memories of life
is my grandpa telling me stories about Italy
and the mountains
and how people would farm all the way up to the sky.
All of my life, all I've ever wanted was to live in Italy.
I had a dream of, you know,
maybe one day going to Rome and having a bowl of pasta.
So three years ago,
my husband and I came to look at a piece of land that had
two, kind of, stables.
I was not impressed.
It was basically a pile of rubble.
It was filled with carcasses and pine needles
and debris and dirt, but the land itself was so beautiful
and covered with olive trees and the vineyard.
Sometimes I fall in love at first sight,
and that's what happened here.
This house is a UNESCO Heritage Site.
Like a historic house back in the US,
you're not allowed to move a window,
you're not allowed to move not an item on the outside
of the house.
You're allowed to go down,
you're allowed to go out underneath the ground,
but you're not allowed to add to this house.
The tiles are local, the masonry's local,
the stone is local,
so it feels very indigenous to the areas it's from.
(lighthearted music)
This is what I made into the main building,
but it has no view.
So I asked my friend, Adrienne Christos, fabulous artist,
to create Tuscany for me in my living room,
and she made this mural on the mura.
Mura is Italian for the wall itself.
Bella and Isaboo and Enzo,
the tree I planted on the day we were married,
and at the top of Enzo is what we did
the night we were married,
After dinner we danced in our robes.
And it's filled with faces and people and animals
and agriculture.
It's beautiful. It's like life itself.
(exciting guitar music)
The kitchen was the biggest pain in the (beep).
Pardon my French or Italian. (laughs)
I didn't get a pantry,
so we had to get creative and do things like this
to create a pantry where there wasn't one.
And my friend got me this in town at a little antique shop,
so I have the smallest pots in the world. (laughs)
(upbeat music)
So the dining room,
what I love the most are the chandeliers.
These were all just beautiful blown glass
in different colors, and Masimo turned them into
the most extraordinary lamps.
(upbeat guitar strumming)
That's Bella, and that's her apartment.
For not entertaining people or bringing people here,
I wanted to make a cozy little place
where just the three of us could stay,
just a little dining room table,
a tiny baby kitchen, a baby living room,
and a very big bed for a very large baby.
I always think of the dog first.
So the first thing I designed for the kitchen
was the dog bed.
The salon is really a room you play games in
and watch games in.
If you want to play some cards, paint a picture,
read a book, it's the room to be yourself in.
And this is what we're making for dinner tonight.
(drill whirring)
There's this Italian brand called Fazioli
that makes pianos, grand pianos.
If I'm gonna live in Italy, I gotta have that,
and I got that in my music room.
To be able to say, "This is my land,
I live here,"
it's overwhelming.
It really is.
And we will keep you guys posted and show you more
in the days to come.
You can check on the progress though
and see way more of how this all happened starting
on October 19th on Facebook Watch and streaming on
the A&E Facebook page.
It's very exciting, and we really hope you join us.