An 18th century Tuscan villa sensitively restored by an Iowa-born designer

HOUSE TOUR | ROOMS & GARDENS | WORLD OF CABANA

Built around 1700, Villa Marchetti is an 18th century estate in the hills of Pistoia, Tuscany, surrounded by olive groves, grape vines and a quality of light that feels otherworldly. Liz Gardner meets its newest custodian, 71-year-old Alecia Stevens, an Iowa-born interior designer who has been "chasing beauty" her whole life.   

BY LIZ GARDNER | ROOMS & GARDENS | 18 SEPTEMBER 2025

The sensitively preserved traditional kitchen at Villa Marchetti © Taylor Hall O'Brien

Have you ever felt delirious from beauty? A haptic overwhelm that moves through the senses and connects you to other timelines; where ancestors stood before the same pieces of art, wafted through the same street corners of incense and sipped on the same bitter drinks. Although it might sound grandiose, this intense feeling actually has a name; it is known as Stendhal syndrome. Marked by shortness of breath and heart palpitations, it is attributed to exposure to objects of great beauty.

That is the feeling of visiting Villa Marchetti, an 18th century property in the hills of Pistoia, a small city in the Tuscan-region of Italy. Built around 1700 by the Marchetti family, the estate is surrounded by olive groves, grape vines and a quality of light that feels otherworldly. Lush green envelopes you, as you wind your way up a narrow gravel road to its gates. As you climb, donkeys make their home out front of L’antica pieve di Celle, the oldest church in the region, founded in the eighth century.

Upon arrival, you are met with an ochre exterior topped with the scallop of terracotta roof tiles and a signature Tuscan red set of doors flanked by pink garden roses. High in the hills, you are in the clouds. Built for multi-generational living, estates of this nature conjure questions about the lives of its residents, past and present. “I’ve chased beauty all my life”, says Alecia Stevens, who purchased the property with her husband, Lee, in 2023. “When I see it, I know it and it lights me up.”

Heralding from the farmland of Iowa, with stops in Minneapolis, New York City and Charleston along her way, Stevens, an interior designer, credits her small town upbringing with the imagination that not only steered her design career but also brought her to Italy. Heavily influenced by textiles and textures in NYC; it was Charleston that sparked her love of the patina and scale of antiques, which are signatures in her work.

And this is evident as you wander from room to room - the palimpsest of each inhabitant layers one upon another. In the office, a desk purchased in 1985 from Claire Stayaert in Minneapolis made the journey with her. “Antiques are storied and the interactions are meaningful, it's like bringing a piece of that with you.” In the grand salon, which houses a bucolic mezzo-fresco, Aphrodite sits on a 15th/16th century sacrestia, a sideboard once used to store sacred vessels in a church. “No one remembers this not being in the home” a neighbor and descendant of the Marchetti’s confirms.

A preponderance of the home was envisioned by a Dr. Grande, who owned and cared for the villa for 25 years. “As I come to understand what a Tuscan villa is, I appreciate even more what he did to restore it,” says Alecia. Parts of his collection remain in the home, as a near-homage to his stewardship. While it is customary in Italy to take your kitchen with you when you leave, Grande included the Gullo stove, the stone sink surround and cabinetry in the sale - a perfect display for Alecia’s dinnerware collections.

A hearth of epic proportions flanks the dining room, while a chiffonier filled with pewter operates as jewelry to a room where conversations linger over dinner. And the table holds one of the dearest treasures of all, a tablecloth gifted to Stevens by her sister. A purchase from Charleston, but recognized by a Pistoia-native as a style and motif produced only in a small-radius of the villa. This is the kind of magic that follows Alecia. “My life of imagining and dreaming and collecting…on the path to this place.”

By definition, a villa is formal on all floors. But Villa Marchetti is an exception - the first level operates in this standard, but the second floor is more rustic, marked by exposed undulating wood beams, nearly an entire tree in the primary bedroom. Substantial armadios were collected to ground each room and offer storage. Stevens’ signature textiles drench each bed and in the butter yellow guest room a coronet with linen is flanked by seashell encrusted side tables and a Fortuny-wrapped sofa.

Art is notably absent from the walls of Villa Marchetti. Pondering this, it's obvious that there is no need - each window operates as a frame to the most striking landscape, where clouds dance by and the sun dapples on rooftops and foliage. 

“It’s a very important part of my story, at 71 years old, coming back to country life, it makes me teary,” says Alecia. “The quality of being in the midst of nature, the peace and beauty; it feels like the house chose us. We are in service of this place and we fall more in the love with it everyday.”