Dynastic Fantastic

At her family country retreat outside Rome, creative director Silvia Venturini Fendi reconnects with nature — and the next generation of the Fendi sisterhood.

- Katherine Ormerod

Set at the end of a long drive flanked by centuries-old stone pines twisting crookedly up to the heavens, I Casali del Pino, the Fendi family’s country estate outside Rome, evokes a 19th-century Italian landscape painting. Just 15 kilometres northwest of the Colosseum, the property predates the Roman Empire, and the family’s transformation of 175 hectares into an organic farm adds to that sense of longevity.

It’s here that Silvia Venturini Fendi spends weekends with her sisters, Ilaria — who runs the farm’s operations — and Maria Teresa, and all of their children. “For me, it’s really a way of resetting from city life and working in fashion, which is very demanding,” Venturini Fendi says with characteristic understatement. Encompassing a terracotta farmhouse with pretty eau de Nil shutters, a dairy, an agritourism hotel with 16 rooms, an organic restaurant and a flock of more than 1000 sheep, I Casali del Pino isn’t pastoral posturing. “We bought this property for our children because we really believe the future will be about having a greener life,” she continues.