Steeped in history but brand new, Rex and Jane Scatena's Free Union villa and vineyard Tra Vigne is a Grand Tour in an afternoon. Vicenza, the legendary land of Palladio, yielded the soft stone that makes up every interior and exterior door and window surround. Venetian glassblowers made the thousands of flowers and leaves for the massive chandeliers. A stop in Positano hotel inspired the floor designs and a centuries-old brick maker in the Southern Italian town of Salerno hand-made very cotto tile.

Inside are 17th- and 18th-century Italian furnishings worthy of the Uffizi; pieta dura consoles and Rocaille Venetian mirrors jostle Subzero, Viking, Miele, and Thermador. It's the essence of Italy filtered by two Californians in the foothills of Virginia.