Hi! ‘Casa del Fiume’ is run by us - Ruth and Stew Holland.
When we were younger we lived and worked in Milan, Ruth as a Fashion Designer and Stew as an IT Consultant. In 2006 we made a ‘no-going-back’ decision, so we sold our UK home and moved to Abruzzo in September the same year. Even our musician son Fabian decided to join us too.
Despite our previous travels here in Italy, one of the few regions we had never been to was Abruzzo. But we had decided that we wanted to be near both mountains and sea. This area of Abruzzo fits that bill perfectly - 40 minutes drive to both the ski slopes and our favourite deserted beach.
We bought our adjacent houses with 5 acres in March 2007 and moved in immediately.
Part of our organic Cachi (large persimmon fruit) crop
Our ‘Contadini Inglesi’ Lifestyle
In true contadini style, we are aiming to be as self-sufficient as we can possibly be, so we do produce a lot of our own organic food.
Within our 5 acre grounds we have 2 areas fenced-off which have become our vegetable allotments and we will probably be adding a third area next year.
Also planned for the future are laying hens to give us some organic eggs. Who knows we may even have some hives producing our own organic honey soon!
Stew and Fabian laying the nets before picking our olives.
When not working on our land, Ruth paints large contemporary pieces on canvas.
Please visit her website.
Fabian is now playing his music to audiences in UK .
And Stew does websites like this one.
Read Ruth’s Blog - an Artist Living in the Majella mountains of Abruzzo
Photo Shoot opportunities
We also organise Photo Shoot opportunities for magazines, brochures etc.
We can arrange these opportunities on our own grounds, river bank, or olive grove as well as local or other locations, for example high up within the Majella National Park or on a ‘Traboccho’ (ancient fishing platform) on the Adriatic coast.
River Aventino at the bottom of our 5 acre garden.
