George Clooney's House in Lake Como, Milan, Italy

it's me wrote:Dunno 

The name went after the plant Oleandro
Very common in Northern Italy
Nice colours but Poisonous!

But he put a lot of jasmin too

 Surely the whole house is fantastic, a dream!

I love love love the smell of Jasmin...pure and perfect....I have the oil, sooo beautiful....x

I also adore jasmin shent !!!!
And yes Theminis, I'm honored by your suggestion, it would be nice to get there and fill some space for him!!  

Interesting the gelato parlor idea
Maybe right  La Lanterna we already talked about
....mmmmm feeding one another sitting on those couches  

Yep that's a nice thought before I go off to bed, sharing a gelato with George.

I just watched the video...I KNEW the internet had to be invented for a reason....what better way to take a break than walking outside Mr Clooney's FABULOUS house....with no risk of an egg.
BTW does anyone know were they rotten eggs or fresh?
Lovely to hear the water lapping...Mmmm

Yep!

They call it
Riviera Romantica too

it's me wrote:Yep!

They call it
Riviera Romantica too

It's so lovely to have an Italian lady here...you are so knowledgable about Como, I love your insights.
Maybe, you could start a thread and teach us one italian word a day!
To keep it relavant for the Mod's, it would have to be Clooney focused...
re; The Villa "Can I use your bathroom, please?"  

Lol! Maybe... It's a funny idea
Let me some time, you keep sending hints

Ciao!

theminis wrote:Well then It's Me as you are one of the closest I nominate you to share that bedroom so George doesn't feel its too big for him, I mean its the least you could do. (ps want pics)

Great. Yes I want pics too of course only from the bedroom. I always was interested in furniture but if by accidant George should be sleeping the bed while you make the pic don't worry I'm only interested in the furniture - the bed. LOL And if George still feels it is too big let us know - WE ARE ALL COMING TO JOIN......if he likes it crowded  

it's me wrote:Lol! Maybe... It's a funny idea
Let me some time, you keep sending hints

Ciao!

MAYBE???? Yeah I understand why you need to think about. The Villa obviously is not good enough. It could be be bigger right? LOL It's me you have a high standard  

Ma nooooo
It was about the 'Italia lessons' LOOOL

Found that too

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Thanks IM....pretty video includes George's Villa too.

I know
All of them about Laglio

it's me wrote:Found that too

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Tranquility.... Imagine how beautiful it is during a full moon, summer night...
With the scent of jasmines.
Sipping vino & eating seasonal figs in a garden by the lake...

Hope you're feeling better, It's Me.
I have my dark moments too at times.

No
Thanks
Not yet
But thanks for the image
Lovely

Millie says ...... "Hi IM x"

it's me wrote:Found that too

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This has made my day better, thank you I.M .......x

Prego darling 

Love the video and the music to it ...Nice. Makes me want to be there with George mmmhhhh

@It's me...you either eat an overdose of chocolate to feel better or find a gym and do some kick boxing to let it out. Whatever you choose you will feel better.

Thanks Nicky
I will think about it

Silken Treasure
The Italian city of Como, celebrated for its silk and scenery, has inspired notables from Leonardo da Vinci and Giuseppe Verdi to Winston Churchill and George Clooney

• By Peter Ross Range
• Photographs by Scott S. Warren
• Smithsonian magazine, July 2008,

"The silkworm is a snob," says Moritz Mantero. "He'll eat anything, but he produces silk only if he eats mulberry!" Mantero is the third-generation owner of Mantero Seta SpA, one of the largest silk manufacturers in Como, Italy. Situated three miles from the Swiss border in northern Italy's lake country, Como supplies silken goods to the fashion houses of New York City, Paris and nearby Milan. Although the backbreaking labor of cultivating the voracious and picky silkworms left Italy after World War II—returning to China, whence it had come centuries earlier—the finishing end of silk production stayed here and expanded. Today in Como and its surrounding foothills, there are 800 companies engaged in the silk and textile trade—manufacturing, printing, dyeing, designing, selling. And more than 23,000 Comaschi, as Como residents are called, work in the business. In 2007 they turned out some 4,400 tons of silk fabric. If you own a silk scarf, tie, blouse or dress by any big-name fashion house, from Armani to Zara, chances are the silk came from Como.

The city, which is also the tourist hub of Lake Como, one of Europe's deepest and most picturesque lakes, is to luxury silk what Reims is to Champagne and Modena to fancy sports cars. Since the manufacturing of silk for the mass-market end of the rag trade migrated largely to China in the past two decades, Como has concentrated on the high-end market, which means fast turnaround for two or three collections a year, sometimes even including final delivery directly to the boutiques of a client like Chanel. "That's the total service they expect," says Mantero of such world-famous designers as Versace, Prada and Ralph Lauren. China, he says, is too far away and too slow to meet the fast-changing demands and relatively small orders of luxury fashion houses.

"Service is not just a practical matter, it's a matter of culture," says Guido Tettamanti, secretary of the Italian Silk Association. "The Como suppliers speak the language of the fashion houses. It's not just the client who proposes. Como also proposes."
Como became Italy's silk capital for two reasons, silk makers say. First, there was an ample supply of water from the lake and nearby alpine streams to the north. Second, there was widespread mulberry farming in the Po River Valley just to the south. Mulberry, native to Italy, was often planted as a field and property divider. This made the region a natural for the cultivation of silkworms.

For me, there's a third reason: the town's physical setting—a palm-lined fjord with an improbable Mediterranean climate and snowy ridgelines in the near distance—may be unmatched in the world. Even its man-made attractions, especially the grand 16th- to 19th-century villas that dot its shores, suggest that adding to the sum of beauty on earth is what is supposed to happen here. And it does—in the silk, in the architecture and in the lifestyles. "We call it la cultura del bello," says Tettamanti. "The culture of beauty."

That culture was on full display as I set out to explore the city and its lakefront one sparkling fall day. The water glinted between sharp Swiss peaks on one side and rolling Lombard hills on the other. Ferries and fishermen skittered across the lake's surface like bugs on the hunt. Small seaplanes buzzed in and out of the Aero Club at the water's edge. Stone structures and ocher facades lined the city's streets, which hummed with the energy of Italian life. A market was selling regional sausages, cheeses and olive oil; mimes and accordionists entertained on the Piazza Duomo; and families bought gelati from a kiosk in a lakeside park next to the Volta Temple, a museum-cum-memorial to Alessandro Volta, a local aristocrat and physicist who in 1800 invented the voltaic pile, an early electric battery.

In Como's lively pedestrian zone—within the old walled Roman city founded when Julius Caesar sent 5,000 men to colonize the place 2,000 years ago—young couples with strollers greeted other young parents on the flagstone-paved streets. Exuberant youngsters chased pigeons and darted around on bicycles, while teenage rakes chatted up chic young women in sidewalk cafés.

Reminders of silk were everywhere. Along Via Vittorio Emanuele II, the main shopping street, designer boutiques splashed silken wares in their windows. On the Piazza Cavour, the main square opposite the town's ferry port, a large emporium offered a profusion of silk products. And just outside the city walls, La Tessitura, a store opened by Mantero in a former textile mill, featured a restaurant called the Loom Café.

Both the city and lake of Como have been drawing visitors for centuries. Many who came were wealthy, which is reflected in the exceptional concentration of villas—palaces, really—that line the inverted Y-shaped lake. Arrayed against rising dark hills, the villas look like set pieces for a movie backdrop. (Indeed, many movies—including Casino Royale, Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones and A Month by the Lake—have been filmed here.)

Notables, too, have been coming since Roman times. Both Plinys, Elder and Younger, were born here and Pliny the Younger built two country houses along the lake—one named Tragedy, the other Comedy. Leonardo da Vinci visited and was said to incorporate scenic elements from the area in some of his canvases. In 1568, Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio constructed what is probably the most famous building on the lake, now known as the Villa d'Este. The Renaissance-style palace, originally built right on the water's edge in the town of Cernobbio, was designed by a leading architect of the day. In 1815 the building passed into the hands of German Princess Caroline of Brunswick, the estranged wife of George IV, Prince of Wales. Caroline spent the next five years upgrading the house—adding a library and a theater and expanding the terraced hillside gardens—and putting on gala parties. In 1873 the estate became a hotel, eventually hosting such boldface names as Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Alfred Hitchcock and Mikhail Gorbachev. Today's guests—who pay $1,000 and up per night for accommodations—include movie stars, Russian oil magnates and American business leaders.
In the 19th century, a parade of writers—Stendhal, Wordsworth and Shelley among them—spread the word of Lake Como's charms. "I ask myself, Is this a dream? / Will it vanish into air? / Is there a land of such supreme and perfect beauty anywhere?" Longfellow wrote of the lake. Liszt, Bellini and Verdi composed music on its shores. After World War II, it was a destination of choice for both Winston Churchill, who painted from a villa in the village of Moltrasio, and Konrad Adenauer, the first postwar German chancellor, who summered in Menaggio.

Today a new generation of famous visitors is descending on Lake Como. The best known is the actor George Clooney, who in recent years has purchased two villas in Laglia, a lakeside village six miles north of Como. "People sometimes call us Lake Clooney," says Jean Govoni Salvadore, the longtime public relations director at the Villa d'Este. Others have apparently started calling Laglia, formerly a sleepy stop on the lake's ferry route, "Georgetown." At least that's what I was told by Sergio Tramalloni, a member of Como's very active seaplane club, as he flew me over the lake and pointed out Clooney's property.

Clooney's presence has reportedly attracted a stream of other celebrity visitors and would-be villa owners. Last year, Vanity Fair cited Italian newspaper reports that Tom Cruise, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and recently re-elected Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had all either purchased or were shopping for Lake Como villas. The Comaschi watch all this with mixed feelings. They are happy to see fresh money reviving hotels and restoring stately properties. But they also know that gentrification and the influx of celebrities come at the cost of increased traffic and, now, dramatically inflated real estate prices.

While the arrival of Clooney and friends may have captured Como's headlines, silk makers and fashion houses still shape its spirit. Mantero, dapper in a pale-blue spread-collar shirt and handmade silk tie, leads me through the design ateliers and consulting rooms of his company's headquarters—a stately urban villa with dark wainscoting, broad hallways and coffered ceilings. In what looks like a professor's study, four people lean over a stack of large design albums. "That's Ferragamo on one side and our designers on the other," Mantero whispers. "They're planning some new scarves."

We walk across a glassed-in bridge from the villa to the design ateliers, where another team is gathered around a long table. This group is finalizing a design for dress material. In the main atelier—a huge room with light streaming in through high windows—I see a dozen or more designers working with pencil, pen, brush and computers. "All these people are artists," says Mantero. "Everything we do starts by hand. It would be far cheaper to do it all by computer, but that's not what our clients want. They want to know that every design is hand-done."

A woman named Donatella (she shyly declines to give her last name) painstakingly draws tiny butterflies, mosquitoes and whimsical flowers for a blue-and-gray scarf design ordered by Liberty of London. At another table, designer Mauro Landoni scans Donatella's drawings into a computer, creating files that will ultimately produce the porous screens that are used for printing on silk. Each will allow a single color to pass through onto bolts of off-white silk stretched out on printing tables that are nearly the length of a football field. The design of a single scarf may need as many as 30 to 35 screens. Landoni's computer scans will also create stencils for weaving dyed silk yarns into a desired design.

A few days after my tour of Mantero's operations, Donatella Ratti, president of the Ratti Group, the other best-known silk company in the Como area, takes me on a tour of her offices. Situated on a plateau about 12 miles from Como with an unobstructed view of the Lombardy Alps, the headquarters houses administrative, sales and design teams in a single, 50,000-square-foot room. "We put women's scarf designers near the home furnishings people," says Ratti, "so each knows what the other is doing."

Style consultant Fabio Belotti, whose wild white hair makes me think of Albert Einstein, tosses silk swatches and design books around as he explains how he and his staff work with the fashion houses to find a winning look for the next collection. "Today we have to be very fast," he says. "In the United States they all do eight collections a year. We try to find something we love, but sometimes the client wants something else, so we collaborate with them."

Touring Ratti's printing plant, I'm amazed by the complexity of the process: the thousands of dye variations in what is called the "color kitchen," the ceiling-high racks of hundreds of silk screens, the baskets full of hanks of raw silk from China and the creative interchange between the print technicians and the designers. At one long table, a man was doing something I'd never before seen in previous visits to silk country: painting, not just printing, a long bolt of silk. Renato Molteni, who refuses to call himself an artist, was making art. Dipping a spatula—"they want the spatula look," he told me—into his dye buckets, he was creating, over and over again, an array of flowers on a large swath of silk. The diaphanous design—beige on white, with tinges of gray—was for dress material ordered by the Milanese fashion house of Dolce & Gabbana. One can only imagine what those dresses are going to cost. Molteni says simply, "You have to watch out that the flowers don't get too big."

"Creativity and high quality, that's our way to survive," says Ratti. "The Chinese are good at doing big quantities. They are not interested in making luxury. It's difficult, it's hard, it's expensive. They can't understand why we would print only 100 meters of something. But there are new rich people in the world—in China, in India, in Russia. They want luxury. They want real Ferraris, real Rolexes, real Hermès. They want Europe."

Former Time foreign correspondent Peter Ross Range writes about travel and international affairs.
Photographer Scott S. Warren is based in Durango, Colorado.

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Ah Mazy, years ago, BG (before G) I was supposed to visit these printers.

I hired a car in Milan but....THE DRIVING UTTERLY WRECKED MY HEAD...I got as far as Asti, got sort of what I wanted, and turned back.

On an empty motorway a car would come out of no where and cut you up.....!!!!

This article ( and G of course) has inspired me to maybe try again....ON THE BUS.....X

So, George Clooney is a Comaschi.

It's a flourishing artisan trade. The Silk Route of Lomabardy.
Venice has Murano glass...& Lake Como has its silk.

Interesting article, Mazy. Didn't know that silk production was so prominent there.

Quality over quantity. Mass production in China may reach the lower end of the market in terms of price, but this regional European meticulously-produced silk is probably exquisite quality.

The type that Armani or Hermes would use.

Nice article thanks !

Ok Question? why is there a "pyramid" in the middle of Como?? Not very "traditional"!!! And that little bridge over the road, is that what links the editing studio to the house? Wouldn't it be nice to have Georgie at the end of your road?!! Also peeking thro the gates at the cherub statue, is that Georges front garden too?  

Cherub statue. Nice . 

It is a grave


G at the end? 
Nah
In the middle!

what would he say wrote:Ah Mazy, years ago, BG (before G) I was supposed to visit these printers.  

I hired a car in Milan but....THE DRIVING UTTERLY WRECKED MY HEAD...I got as far as Asti, got sort of what I wanted, and turned back.

On an empty motorway a car would come out of no where and cut you up.....!!!!

This article ( and G of course) has inspired me to maybe try again....ON THE BUS.....X

WWHS good luck let us know when you decide to try again ;~))

By car you need to be always careful
Yes!

George Clooney: the treasure of Laglio

Actor George Clooney fell for Italy and the locals fell for him when he bought a villa in Laglio, near Lake Como, so much so he was made an honorary citizen. As he attends the Venice film festival this week, The Local takes a closer look at his love affair with Italy.

Was it love at first sight for George?
Not quite. Of course, he liked Italy at least enough to pay a reported €11.7 million for Villa Oleandra in Laglio. He initially just saw it as an “investment” and a place to maybe “spend a few weeks each year”.
But the Italian way of life soon captured his heart, with Clooney once saying that the purchase “changed my life in a very pleasant and unexpected way...I realized how beautiful life was in Italy and how it really helped calm me and not feel so pressured.”

And was the love from Laglio reciprocated?
It would appear so. The 900-stong local population is fiercely protective of “their George”. As soon as former mayor Giuseppe Mantaro realised the impact having the actor and his A-List pals in town had on the local economy, he set about making him an honorary citizen.
“Mr Clooney has done so much in the way of putting us on the map,” Mantaro said.
“Before, if you typed Laglio into an internet search engine it would ask you if you meant Luglio - meaning July in Italian.”
The locals are equally protective about the women George gives his heart to, keeping a keen eye on who he brings to town each summer.
They were unimpressed when he dated Elisabetta Canalis, an Italian showgirl.
“I mean, who is she?” Jennifer Folloni, a barista in a bar down the road from Clooney’s villa told the Washington Post in 2011. Another woman referred to Canalis as a “velina”, a derogatory term for the scantily-clad women who parade around on Italian television.
Mayor Roberto Pozzi carefully analysed the break-up: “She was used to the party life in Sardinia. This tranquil­ity can become boring. You either love it or you detest it,” he told the newspaper. Clooney, on the other hand, was “more in sync with Laglio’s brooding soul".
Clooney’s privacy is also fiercely guarded. Pozzi last year declared that anyone, tourists and residents alike, daring to set foot within 100 metres of Clooney’s home would be slapped with a fine.

But has Clooney’s relationship with Laglio always been plain sailing?
Like every true romance, Clooney and Laglio have had their ups and downs. He once led a campaign against former mayor Mantoro’s plans to build a parking lot and a bridge near his home.
Clooney and former girlfriend Stacy Keibler also once suffered a bout of food poisoning after eating at a local restaurant. “"Finally had a bad meal in Italy, our whole dinner party got food poisoning,” his ex tweeted at the time. But she stayed upbeat: “Oh well, at least I’m in Italy.”

What does he do when he’s in town?
When he’s not frolicking on his boat with the likes of Brad Pitt, Clooney’s favourite hang-out is the local branch of the famous Harry’s Bar chain.
But he also frequents less glitzy venues, a newspaper stand owner once said.
"He comes to Laglio mainly to recharge his batteries and wants to be treated like everyone else here...He likes nothing better than to pop into the bar for a quick drink and not to be treated like someone famous."
He has also used the location to shoot scenes for several films, including Ocean’s Twelve, as well as for his Fiat commercials.

What kind of impact has Clooney had on Laglio?
Well before he came along, homes in the area were selling for €1,000 per square metre, now they’ve surged to more than €10,000. Local businesses have also boomed, with restaurant’s promoting themselves with a Clooney endorsement. Boat companies also offer ‘Clooney sight-seeing’ tours, but obviously not within 100 metres of his home.
Donatalla Versace has lived in the area for years but her presence doesn't seem to have made the same impression.

Will he keep his home in Italy?
There have even been several reports about Clooney selling his villa as he apparently no longer gets the privacy he craves. He even installed an egg-throwing machine in his garden, which hurled raw eggs at boats that got too close.
But alas, the talk of selling up comes to nothing, and each year he can be spotted happily cruising across Lake Como.

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Very nice find Nicky thank's so much for posting it I love articles like this. Thanks
s

A cute article.  Thanks to Henway for the find:

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Sun 29 Sep 2013, 21:09
George Clooney's Italian escape

AMSTERDAM -
George Clooney feels most at ease in Italy. The famous actor therefore regularly goes there.
 
According to the American movie star, nothing beats the European country. "I get the chance to feel free. It's a place where I can go flee," he told The Post Online. "I have read scripts, write, or invite my friends It's great to take a two-hour lunch, as the Italians do the time.." In life is not about wealth, it's about time take things and really enjoy. That may Italians like no other, "says George.

Even friends of the Hollywood star are fond of Italian life. "My friends see my house on the Como lake as their home. They come even if I'm not there."

zo 29 sep 2013, 21:09
George Clooney vlucht naar Italie

Van onze redactie
AMSTERDAM -
George Clooney voelt zich het meest op zijn gemak in Italie. De beroemde acteur vlucht er dan ook regelmatig naartoe.


Foto: DANNY MOLOSHOK
Volgens de Amerikaanse filmster gaat er niets boven het Europese land. "Ik krijg er de kans om me vrij te voelen. Het is een plaats waar ik naartoe kan vluchten", vertelt hij aan The Post Online. "Ik lees er scripts, schrijf er, of nodig mijn vrienden uit. Het is heerlijk om de tijd te nemen voor een twee uur durende lunch, zoals de Italianen doen. "In het leven gaat het niet om rijkdom; het gaat om de tijd nemen voor dingen en er echt van genieten. Dat kunnen de Italianen als geen ander", vindt George.
Ook vrienden van de Hollywoodster zijn dol op het Italiaanse leven. "Mijn vrienden zien mijn huis aan het Comodormeer als hun huis. Ze komen er zelfs als ik er niet ben."

A brilliant photographic history of His Nibs' home in Italy up to the present day I think. Many thanks to Frenchiesfans


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Wonderful pics of Oleandra!

But, maybe this should go under "And The Rest!"

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Yep, moving it here and when I get a minute, I'll copy the pictures too so we've got them here and not just a link.

Thanks for these wonderful pictures and links...looks very pleasant there.

Supposed living in Sydney and the Harbour...we are quite spoilt.

Not too mention the outback.

To be truthful...these are not the pictures I am interested in......Where is that GC?..lol..

Here are the pics and google translation from the link above

The Oleandra George Clooney and his history with the Fine Arts


His name villa Oleandra / Villa Oleander (Oleander) Clooney is the current owner but this villa was occupied by famous artists such as American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, known among other things for his book The Marble Faun, it is said that he wrote this book during his stay a few months at the villa Oleandra.

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In 1870 the Vitali family of Milan acquired the property which the most famous is the painter Emilio Vitali was born in 1901

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Photos of Laglio in the early 1900s

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Here are pictures of the villa Oleandra time Emilio Vitali death in 1980

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After Oleandra fell into the hands of a famous brand of sauce Ketchup, good nothing to say except that it was an investment, left the state.

Our Clooney buys them in October 2002

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Oleandra restores and presents him a close friend Margherita and a gazebo created by the blacksmith Cuppari

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adore the gazebo from inside

and the ceiling paintings     

it's me wrote:adore the gazebo from inside

and the ceiling paintings     

Yeah its not a bad little place.

Love this gazebo i have one similar...and kangaroo's love to shelter from the sun!

Granted i don't have painted ceilings....they are wonderful!

Ah, the famous gazebo! Remember ladies? This was the gazebo built for George and Sarah to get married under!! Sorry, sorry, sorry, I don't want to change the subject.

Thanks Nicky for sharing the pictures with us. It's always nice to see new views of his home.

yep
the UFO thing

I perfectly know    

To be truthful I like and respect anyones home which they can AFFORD.

But can appreciate the beautiful of this lovely home.

UFO's...I am not starting on that...need to sleep tonight....and the only sighting I am interested in is of George!
*smiling*

good night baby
and good luck!

Yes, nice gazebo, goes well with the villa. And what´s best is the location of the place    Beautiful lake.

Katiedot wrote:Ah, the famous gazebo!  Remember ladies? This was the gazebo built for George and Sarah to get married under!!  Sorry, sorry, sorry, I don't want to change the subject.

Thanks Nicky for sharing the pictures with us.  It's always nice to see new views of his home.

Surely the Chapel nearby would be more appropriate, there's nothing like the real thing.   

Never mind the gazebo but he was suppose to get married???!!!??? To who and when or is it for the next summer? I can´t keep up - sorry.

Let it go Carla. This is a thread about George's house in Italy.

Here's a link from an architectural site showing the detailed design of the metalwork. Stunning.

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Believe this where John Krasinski and Emily Blunt got married......

Thank you Nicki!

great found!