Meet Christian Scali & Stephen Lewis, Owners of Villa Ardore in Tuscany

Issue #121

Photo by Jessica Allegretti

Lots of people dream about buying a crumbling Tuscan villa and fixing it up, but few people actually do it. Christian Scali and Stephen Lewis are among the few brave souls who have taken on such a project, and though it certainly wasn’t easy, they’re now reaping the rewards of their efforts. (They also took on the task of getting Italian citizenship by descent, which is a whole other story.) They split their time between Los Angeles and Tuscany, at Villa Ardore, a 500-year-old farmhouse in the Chianti countryside that they spent about a year and a half renovating. When they’re not at the villa, they rent it out.

My family and I were lucky enough to spend five nights there last June, so I can attest to how amazing a property it is from firsthand experience. They really thought of everything, from equipping the pool bar with an ice machine and stocking it with Aperol and prosecco for poolside spritzes to creating custom bath products and producing their own olive oil. I loved gathering fresh zucchini and basil from the garden, relaxing by the pool, and soaking in the jacuzzi inside the spa (yes, the villa has its own spa).

I recently interviewed Christian and Stephen for an article about villa rentals for Italy Magazine and thought it would be worth publishing the unabridged version here. I’m thrilled to share it as part of my series of interviews with entrepreneurs and creatives doing cool things in Italy.

Photo by Jessica Allegretti

How long did the renovation take? It was quite a process, right?

Stephen Lewis: It was quite a process. It took a year and a half or a year and nine months. Either Chris or I was here throughout the entire process, pushing and making sure that things continued, so we did a lot in a relatively short period of time, but it felt like an eternity while it was happening.

Now that you've been renting it out for about a year, how has it been going?

SL: It's been great. Our very first guests were people who Chris and his cousin had just happened to meet at somebody's birthday celebration and wedding in Barcelona. At that point, we had done no publicity, no advertising whatsoever. And in fact, we were busily getting the spa ready, which had just been completed literally the day before they arrived. It was very much down to the wire.

That was how things began. And then we had a half season from May through the fall of 2023 and it was good because we hadn't done any advertising, so we didn't have a lot of guests, but we had enough that we were paying our expenses as we went and enough space in between so that with each guest, we could think: What did we like about how we handled that? What do we not like about how we handled it? We could work out any bugs.

It was the first time we were doing this, and so it also gave us an opportunity to evaluate whether our business model was consistent with what was really going to happen.

Have you found that the seasonality is consistent with what you would expect for that destination? I mean, obviously summer would be the high season, right? Winter low season. Is that kind of consistent for the villa bookings as well?

SL: Yes. The one thing I would say has surprised me a little bit is that the season extends a bit longer than I think it used to into the fall. But, other than that, yes, it's very much what one would expect.

So if people want to book the villa, how far in advance should they be booking?

SL: Well, it really depends. We right now are almost half full for 2025, and so to be absolutely sure that you can get the dates that you want, I would say the sooner, the better. People started booking six months to a year in advance. Now, as I mentioned, we're almost half full, and so the range of dates is narrowing, but we also have had people who have booked just a couple of weeks in advance, when we've happened to have a gap in the schedule.

Do you have a minimum stay?

SL: Yes, one week.

What's included?

SL: For the premium stay, so the entry level stay, that includes daily breakfast, but it's self-catered for the other meals. Whereas, if people are booking the elite stay, that includes private chefs, so daily catered breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A transfer from the airport is included for the elite stay.

Photo by Jessica Allegretti

What are the advantages of renting a villa versus staying in a hotel?

SL: The big advantage, I think, is privacy and that's a concept that encompasses quite a bit. There's what people normally think of privacy as—nobody's looking at what you're doing—but also it's the comfort that you have feeling like you're in your own home. If somebody wakes up in one of our bedrooms at 6 a.m. and they decide that they want some coffee and toast, they can just walk down in their slippers to the kitchen and have some. In a hotel, you're not going to leave your room in your slippers and pajamas.

So you really can let your hair down and just relax as though you were in your own private home. And at the same time, you have all of the same amenities that you would have if you were in a hotel, so you have that high level of service and comfort, but without the feeling that you're in somebody else's space.

Obviously from villa to villa, the services can vary, right? So what are the services that you guys offer?

SL: We offer a whole range of services, but the difference that one would experience is from the very beginning of the first contact with us, when people contact us through our website or through a through a partner, we of course, respond to their inquiry and ask any questions that are not obvious from what they've already provided us, like the dates that they want to come, whether there's a special occasion that they're coming for, etc.

But very early in our communication with a potential guest, we set up a video conference call, and during this call, we get to know them, we find out who they are, what are their likes, what are their interests, and we introduce them to the villa. That call is with me or with Chris, and with Francesco, the villa manager, so that they're already developing the familiarity with Villa Ardore, and with who they're going to encounter when they're here.

Christian Scali: We also take the time to get to know our client, what's going on in their life, and why they're coming to the villa. We have one guest that's coming next year whose mom is going through this terrible health crisis. And my mom is also going through that. And so, we've just been exchanging messages, keeping tabs on each other about how our moms are doing, and that's been really nice. It's like creating a friendship.

SL: And so we find out what their interests are, what they want to do, and then begin to arrange those things for them. So for example, somebody may want to have a dress made, and we will arrange for that person to meet with a dress maker, or have a pair of shoes made, or to visit a biodynamic winery. There are any number of things that people might want to do.

We don't really have a list of things that people have to choose from. We find out what people's interests are, what they want to do, and we curate a stay around their interests and desires so that when they're here, they have an itinerary that they've planned, that they participated in, if, in fact, they want to do anything at all. Because we also have had people who have come here who have just wanted to relax and enjoy the house and enjoy the peace and quiet.

CS: Well, I think another thing that sets us apart is the fact that, you know, we have so many amenities. It's like the amenities you get at a hotel, but with all the privacy and seclusion.

SL: We have the private spa, for example, the daily chef, as we mentioned, dedicated concierge with Francesco, the villa manager.

Photo by Jessica Allegretti

Obviously, the villa is amazing and I'm sure a lot of people want to stay and just hang out, but there's also so much to do in the area, right? Do you find that people want to go out and explore the area or do they just want to hang out at the villa?

SL: I find that it's a real mix, don't you?

CS: Yeah, it depends on the group.

SL: We had one family that ate all of their meals here at the villa. They might have gone out once or twice, but it was very unusual for them to do that for two weeks.

CS: We had one group that had a bunch planned, and then once they got here, they were like, “We're canceling everything and just staying.” But then, you have adventure types, or wellness types, or active people that like to go out and do things.

What do you guys tend to do personally when you're at the villa?

SL: Well, we cook.

CS: Yeah, we cook. We tend to cook.

Do you like to go out and explore stuff to do in the area, or do you just want to chill at the villa?

CS: We actually do both. We have a lot of friends around here, and we like to go places with them, and experience new things and meet new people. For us, that's the best part of being here.

SL: But it's amazing how this area is so packed with small family wineries, some of which are just okay, some which are not very good, and some are amazing. And one of the things that's been really fun to do is just go around and try many of them. It's such a culturally and agriculturally rich area, that there's a ton to do, and we do take advantage of that.

What are some of your favorite things to do in the area? I mean, you mentioned some wineries. Are there specific wineries that you really like, or other places and things, towns and stuff.

CS: There's some wineries that we like more than others. Poggio Amorelli, Terreno, and Fonterutoli come to mind because they're more selective about the wine that they offer, but also that they choose to share with their guests. Some of the bigger wineries tend to try to push the stuff that is not very well known, because they want to get more volume of that, as opposed to giving people a nice experience of what it is to taste their good wines. It just depends on where you go. There are some wineries that I can't believe that they sell their wine...

Other things that we like to do, though... Every once in a while we hear of some new artisan, or maybe not new, but somebody we haven't heard of before. Like, the guy that makes organic shampoo. Stephen went to visit him and brought back some of his products. And that was really neat to see how he does everything, sources everything locally, and comes up with different fragrances. You learn something when you go visit him and talk to him, learn about what he does. We’ve met other local artisans, like the book binder in Florence and the paper maker.

SL: Also just community things like Bar Italia in Castellina in Chianti. It's just the place where everybody in town hangs out and just by going in there, over time, we’ve gotten to meet the people who live in Castellina. It's just very rewarding to become a part of the community. And every time we go in there and hang out there, we meet somebody new. It's not such a destination or something that we would send people to, but in terms of what we do, that's something that we very much enjoy.

Photo by Jessica Allegretti

Do you guys speak Italian, by the way?

CS: Yes, passively.

SL: Yeah, not fluently.

Is that something that people kind of should consider when they're planning their trip? Do you find that it can be a stumbling block or it's not really an issue?

CS: Enough people in the places that most people will go have workers that speak English, or the owners themselves speak English. Maybe they studied abroad somewhere else, and they came back to Italy. But it's always nice to know a few words in the local language and be able to say buongiorno, buonasera, or order something at a restaurant.

SL: But in terms of a language barrier, I think because Tuscany as a whole is so accustomed to people from other countries, and with English being kind of the lingua franca, generally people can be very comfortable even not speaking Italian. There are places that are totally non-touristy, where you may run into people who don't speak much of any, if any, English, but it's somewhat rare.

For people who are thinking about renting a villa, what are some of the other little things to keep in mind, like in Italy, not everywhere has an air conditioner or dryers, if you want to do your laundry, right?

CS: I would say a few things. A dryer or a washer and dryer. Air conditioning for sure. Mosquito nets or window screens. Check out the beds because most villas in Tuscany have really crappy beds. In my view, that's the biggest thing—what am I sleeping in? And a lot of them aren't very comfortable,

SL: Although it's hard to vet that in advance.

CS: We can look at them and see if they look quaint. And they’ve got the wrought iron and have got flowers on the bedspread.

SL: Chris and I were staying someplace with some other family several years ago, and a lot of Chris' older relatives were there, and I realized that we were more than an hour from the nearest hospital, and none of them had any serious health issues, but that was something that I wanted to find out about. Here we are relatively close to an amazing hospital 20 minutes away, but if people have health issues, they should know that Tuscany is a big region, and there are places that are quite remote.

Photo by Jessica Allegretti

Transportation is probably one of the things people need to really consider too, right? Because aside from that, just in general, you have to drive everywhere, right?

CS: We're not remote, but you still should have transportation, unless you're going to have a van taking you out to excursions and stuff. I mean, you could walk to the nearest restaurant, but it'd be like a 30 minute walk.

Do you guys tend to have guests that book, like the van transportation, chauffeured? Or does everyone rent a car?

CS: We have a lot more that don't rent a car and only do the transfer and then when they want to do an excursion. Very few people actually rent a car.

SL: That has been a surprise to us. We expected more people to rent a car. We would encourage people to do it because it's a wonderful way to be autonomous and see things. It opens you up to much more serendipity if you're in your own car at the same time.

CS: A lot of people are uncomfortable driving in a foreign country and there are little peculiarities in Italy about how they handle speed checks and things like that. And you’ve got to make sure you're up on the local law to know whether it's okay for you to drive with your state driver's license or if you need an international driver's license and it needs to be translated into Italian.

Is there anything else that people should know when they're thinking about renting a villa, whether it's yours or elsewhere in Italy, not just in Tuscany, but in general?

SL: Just to really enjoy yourself. I would say the big advantage of renting a villa, as I mentioned at the beginning, is the privacy and the feeling like you're at home. And if you're going to go through that process of renting a villa, then really try to make it feel like home. Really live like a local as best as best you can, and allow yourself to be a part of the local community and do local things and just relax and enjoy yourself.

Further Reading

• Curious to learn more about the ins and outs of renting a villa in Italy? Check out my aforementioned article for Italy Magazine.

• Christian also shared some of his local tips for what to do in Tuscany for my Tuscany guide for Travel + Leisure.

• For more Tuscany inspiration, check out these Postcards from Lucca and Pienza and this issue about how to make the most of a week in Tuscany from the New Roman Times’ archives.

• You can read all of the interviews in this series here.