On the Latium coast in Santa Marinella, an attractive holiday destination from the times of the ancient Roman aristocracy until the 1950s, when bon vivants and illustrious personalities wanted to build their luxurious villas here to represent a nonchalant wealth, a jewel of modern architecture is for sale: Villa La Califfa (it was featured on Domus 482) on the Guglielmo Marconi waterfront, designed in 1966 by Luigi Moretti (and realised after his death), a leading figure in 20th-century Italian architecture and one of the pioneers of parametric architecture, who gave Santa Marinella some valuable works (in addition to La Califfa, the Villa Moresca and the adjacent Villa Saracena).
The building, immersed in a garden of 1,000 square metres, extends over two floors with a surface area of 350 square metres.
The plastic volume that seems to have been shaped by the wind and the sand, introverted like a defensive bastion towards the street and open with fan-shaped walls to the sea, and the dynamic chiaroscuro effects of the surfaces, accentuated by the rough finish that gives a rough and pleasantly “imperfect” character to the composition, recall in everything the more famous and neighbouring Villa Saracena by the same Moretti (1957), of which the building now on the property market seems a lovely "little sister". However, Villa Saracena is not for sale.
A fluid interconnection of rooms, in an ideal progression from the entrance towards the sea, connotes the interior. On the ground floor, there is a bedroom, a study and a bathroom, the kitchen and the living area that opens onto a large terrace with a whirlpool bath; on the first floor, there is the sleeping area with two bathrooms, three bedrooms and a balcony bordered by an iron parapet that seems to be sucked in by the sea undertow.
Amidst narrows and expansions, the outdoor garden softly envelops the building, leading towards the sea, through a private access.
Today, the villa is being put up for sale by Lionard Luxury Real Estate and is waiting to be purchased by a buyer who can appreciate the charm of the Dolcevita and a prestigious work of Italian architectural history.
