Los Angeles lawyers are renovating a 16th-century Tuscan farmhouse into a luxury villa. Here's how they did it.

becoming owners of a 16-century-old farmhouse in Italy's famousTuscany region, which they purchased in 2021 and have since renovated into a luxurious eight-bedroom villa that opened to guests this summer. The villa can be rented out quite completely, but Scali and Lewis also spend time here when they're in Italy and have long-term plans to live here permanently after they retire. CNN is reporting on this.

For Scali, whose grandfather is from Reggio Calabria in Italy, the idea of buying real estate in his family's home country has been a long time coming. He grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, surrounded by a large Italian family - "my grandparents had eight children, and I have about 50 cousins," he says - who''would gather on Sundays for meals prepared by his grandmother. "She had her own vegetable garden, and she made the most sauce of her own," he says. "All the kids would come. It was a lot of fun.".

Once he moved to the West Coast, however, Scali, who had only one cousin living nearby, felt nostalgic for those exuberant family gatherings of his childhood. "Growing up in that environment, I missed that later in life when I moved away from it," he says. Around 2016, he began taking Italian language classes to improve his college skills. He and Lewis also began traveling regularly to Italy, mostly in the Tuscany region. Their trips began to plant seeds about becoming property owners and future lifelong residents''Sunday lunches at Scali's grandmother's house - totally unattainable in the city. "So we started to change our concept: well, what if we lived in the countryside? If we lived in the Chianti region?" - recounts Scali.

They focused their search specifically on this part of Italy, known for its beautiful towns, ancient castles and vineyards that produce some of the world's most revered wines. However, in early 2020, a pandemic disrupted their plans as Lewis, who was not an Italian citizen, was not allowed to enter the country to join Scali, who was granted citizenship in 2019 thanks to his family. However, Scali obtained permission through the Italian consulate for Lewis to enter, and in the spring of 2021 they traveled to''s six-week mission to find their "dream" location. They also re-conceptualized their future property and decided to rent it out, which meant they were also starting a new take on the hotel industry: as owners, not just guests.

After looking at about 30 properties, they found one that seemed promising: a multi-bedroom mansion with a pool, guest house and vineyard on the grounds. But there were a few major problems, including the home's awkward layout, expansive lot size and an illegal attached guest room.