Up at the villa

Arts and Crafts-style holiday apartments high above Lynmouth Bay on North Devon’s Exmoor coast have a romantic origin, as PHILIP DALLING discovers.

- Philip Dalling

It is a long way from the spring sunshine of the Eternal City of Rome to what can seem like the almost eternal mists and rainfall of the Exmoor coastline.

Tito Spaldi, who made the transition more than two decades ago and who with his wife Angelika is custodian of one of North Devon’s most fascinating country houses, has no regrets about his move from his native Italy to the shores of the Bristol Channel.

“The weather can change so rapidly on Exmoor. When people see the cliffs shrouded in mist and rain, they ask me why I live here. I tell them I like it here. I fell in love with the view and I am still thrilled by the clear days when the moon rises over Foreland Point and there are spectacular sunsets over the sea.”

Angelika and the couple’s children shared Tito’s enthusiasm for the landscape. When the former Hewitt’s Hotel on the Hoe came on the market they acquired the property and spent much time and money restoring a building which had become tired and was in need of the tender loving care the family lavished upon the property.