Stone houses are unique as they represent the pact between man and earth: an example of dwellings that respect nature and her wonders.
With outstanding aesthetic qualities, the material used to build them – the stone – recalls the original, millennia-old concept of home, intended as shelter from the external world, combined with the modern concept of comfort, easily achieved thanks to not only the most up to date architectural technologies and techniques, but also in renovation and design, as well as for the green areas that usually surround this type of structure.
Stone houses and the concept of home
How do we describe stone? A solid material with a light yet lasting-in-time beauty, handed down to preserve a part of our roots into contemporaneity, with a tender note of meekness when it is turned into a safe place, a shelter, our own stone house. The Italian word ”casa” can be translated in English both as “home” and “house”: the difference being in depth, tied to the sense of family and intimate, private space. While the first word indicates where the heart is, the second is just a building, the outer shell.
On the practical side, over and above the emotional aspect, stone has many qualities: excellent long-lasting durable material, fire and heat resistant, eco-friendly, sustainable and non-toxic, just to mention a few.
Stone houses: a pact between man and earth
Nowadays, when we are experiencing loud and clear what it means to spend our time staying at home, one is also able to appreciate how pleasant it can be. And then, when the warm weather arrives, who wouldn’t like to have a house that remains naturally cool even in summertime? Stone houses represent not an alternative to modernity, but rather an added value, an ancient tradition that makes us see the stone as majestic, incredibly solid and with an old-world charm that nature gifted us with and that allowed us to survive, take shelter and protect ourselves since thousands of years ago.
Browse our catalogue of stone houses for sale in Le Marche.
The use of stone to build houses and other types of buildings goes way back in time and was subjected to many important changes throughout history as also from geographic locations. One of the first materials recognised as suitable to build houses, stone was the first choice for imposing edifices made with the aim of eternal stability, like churches and castles.
History itself teaches us this indissoluble bond between nature, space and time. The houses built with this material are robust and offer many advantages from the point of view of habitat and structures. The Greeks knew it well, they would use stone to build all the foundations, as did the powerful lords from ancient Rome to Medieval times, who used stone to erect massive, undestroyable palaces and castles.
It was only during the late Middle Age, and always in close proximity to natural resources rich with cobblestones, like waterways or mountain quarries, that people started appropriating of this humble, yet at the same time, noble material to create dwelling places for their families that, up until that time, had to make do with much more precarious housing situations.
Stone in Le Marche
As for Le Marche, there are numerous stone houses to be found throughout the whole territory, a memory of an ancient tradition that developed here around 1400, when the very first settlements began to grow outside the fortified town walls. Mostly, these were farmhouses, built by the farmers themselves using stones, bricks, cobblestones, mortar and, at times, wood: all recycled materials collected from the marvellous surroundings. Traditional houses, that were the first choice for many families for generations, and were a guarantee of solidity and strength.
Among the many stone farmhouses, in the Marche countryside it is not rare to spot a tower house, which is a fortified structure dating back to medieval age and used as a watchtower against enemies, and then converted to a dovecote during the share farming period. Thus, throughout centuries, stone was selected as a certainty and a guarantee, not only for dwelling and functional needs, but also for military and defence purposes, a testimony of its durability.
From antique to modern: how to renovate stone houses
I would like to have a sustainable house, solid on the outside, preserving and renovating the tradition, while being extremely modern on the inside, is it possible? Renovating stone houses is possible.
It is of vital importance to trust the job in the hands of professionals with expertise in renovation and planning for an optimal outcome – we rely on the excellent partnership with Architect Sergio Marinelli – and, most of all, to ensure the respect for the material from the beginning to the conclusion of the renovation works.
The stone must be respected during every phase and, even if one were to opt for demolishing the existing building in order to create a completely new, more modern and with a remodelled layout, the architect will ensure the preservation of the stone in the most appropriate manner in order to use it in the new building. A new stone house built with excellent materials, even ones that have been recycled, that looks at the future while embracing the past, without forcing it, in order to maintain the roots with the lands it stands on.
Here at Marche Country Homes we constantly look for houses like these, where the ancestral tie with the land is unbreakable, where to live and spend one’s time is a pure joy, where the overriding feelings are those of freedom and well-being, browse our catalogue of stone houses for sale in Le Marche.
