Home tour: a coastal retreat in Southern Tuscany, Italy shaped by 1970s Italian Riviera living

“We really wanted this to be a home where you felt on holiday as soon as you arrive and to position everything towards the sunset view,” says Charles, who spent 20 years designing hospitality spaces, including hotel rooms, prior to setting up Charles & Co, with offices in New York, London and Italy.

With no client to dampen any creativity, she could now combine her love of residential design with her years of customer service experience. “Renovating the home to the standards of a prestigious hotel with good quality mattresses, a kitchen designed to hang out in, alongside a level of design that my clients were used to finding in their own homes,” she continues.

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Villa La Cacciarella is named after the small, secluded cove of Cala Cacciarella that it overlooks, where Mediterranean scrub and rocky cliffs meet the clear waters of the Tuscan coast.

Rather than imposing a conventional Tuscan farmhouse aesthetic on the house, Charles looked to the villa’s original architecture for a contemporary interpretation of 1970s Italian Riviera living, shaped by vintage Italian furniture, unusual marbles, rich colour and a strong connection to the sea.

In collaboration with architect Matteo Michielin, Squared Architect and landscape architect Enzo Margheriti, the gut renovation took three years to complete, with rich tones that lend the villa a sense of warmth during the cooler months.

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Nestled into the hill, the lower ground floor of the three-storey main residence spans 1,151 sq ft, housing the living room and dining room. Here, small windows were replaced with larger openings, allowing the interior to engage more directly with the sea and the sunset.

“The view as you entered the house was originally hidden, which was one of the first design decisions, so you step in and admire the sea immediately,” Charles explains.

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Organised around the idea of relaxed communal living, the living room forms part of the open-plan layout, anchored by the original fireplace, which is finished in Diaspro marble, a distinctive stone from Sicily.

Most of the furniture and lighting was sourced at Mercanteinfiera, the antiques fair in Parma, including a 1970s Morentz sofa reupholstered in De Le Cuona mohair, helping to give the interiors an unmistakably Italian character.

The dining room flows into the kitchen, where dark walnut cabinetry gives the space a deeper, more grounded character.

A custom Officine Gullo cooker from Florence is finished in a custom terracotta-red finish, while a worktop and shelf in Serbian Ombra di Caravaggio marble introduce dark tones and red veining.

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Behind a secret door is a second kitchen and pantry, finished in deep coral tones, with its own entrance and separate access to the dining room.

“We wanted to create a home where everyone hangs at the kitchen counter to eat, but the work of cooking and cleaning can be hidden,” Charles elaborates.

The interior designer also worked with Abask to source accessories and tableware, while the kitchen is equipped with Miele and Officine Gullo appliances and the glassware is sourced from Murano factories in Italy—intricate details that ensure the kitchen is considered not simply as a functional space, but as part of the broader experience of the villa.

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When the existing structure was removed during the gut renovation, the rock wall upon which the house sits was exposed. Rather than conceal it, Charles left the rock uncovered and designed a cave bar around it, combining burl wood with an antique-mirror ceiling, while Diaspro marble clads the floor and walls.

From the kitchen, the interiors open onto the expansive outdoor spaces, which total 1,851 sq ft and extend towards the sea.

The garden was completely re-terraced, creating two distinct exterior areas, where a sequence of outdoor spaces unfolds across the limestone flooring, accommodating a dining table, a large sofa seating area, a barbecue area and a ping-pong table.

The other is centred around the swimming pool, where a shady pergola overlooks the sea, with views extending towards Corsica and Sardinia. As Charles puts it, “The wide view of the sunset should make you want to slip into a kaftan and not leave.”

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The 1,431-sq-ft ground floor comprises five bedroom suites—including a bunk bedroom—each with its own bathroom, with the palette determined in part by each room’s orientation: sea-facing bedrooms are composed of pinks, greys and blues, while garden-facing bedrooms use yellows, greens and whites.

Anchored by custom-made beds by Chelsea Upholstery, the bedrooms are layered with wallcoverings inspired by the fantastical forms of Parco dei Mostri di Bomarzo, a 16th-century sculpture park near Lake Bolsena. The designs were created by Charles’s good friend, Zak Profera of Zak+Fox, who shares her love of this part of Italy.

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Meanwhile, the bathrooms are treated with the same attention to materiality as the communal spaces.

Colourful Italian marbles sourced from marble yards near Lake Garda and elsewhere in Italy—ranging from grey-and-pink Fior di Pesco slabs from Forni Avoltri to Albachiara green marble from northern Italy and Calacatta Viola Lilla—create distinct identities throughout.

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Finally, a separate two-bedroom apartment sits alongside the main residence. Measuring 700 sq ft, it adopts a softer palette and a more intimate atmosphere than the main villa.

Designed as a private retreat for guests or family members while remaining connected to the larger property, it is fitted with its own living and kitchen area, laundry room, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, as well as an outdoor area with a private garden framed by sea views.

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