An hour from the sea, a different season

Why we keep one house in the snow, and how it changes a summer on the coast.

From the port at Menton you can be in Limone Piemonte in about an hour, up the Roya valley and through the tunnel under the Col de Tende, and on the other side it is another country in every sense. In January there is a metre of snow on the roof of the baita and the coast is a rumour. In July the same road takes you from a terrace at thirty degrees to a meadow at eighteen.

We keep one house there, for one family, and it has changed how we think about the coast. A house in the mountains is kept differently: snow load on the roof, the water off in winter, the wood stacked in September so it is dry by Christmas. But it is also kept for the same reason, which is that a house that is only opened when someone arrives is a house that is always slightly broken when they do.

What the two houses give each other is a season. The family on the coast has August, which is loud and hot and full of other people’s guests. An hour away they have a silence that costs nothing but the drive. And in January, when the coast is quiet and beautiful and empty, the baita has the snow, and a week that ends with dinner back by the sea.

We do not plan to keep many houses in the mountains. One road, one valley, one family. But the road is a good one, and we know it in every weather.