Ciccone experienced been dwelling in Arlington, Va., and wished to shift to McLean for far more house. The system hadn’t been to establish a home. But the a person that was on the land did not healthy her requires.
“For me, it was just when you are going to build your aspiration house, what’s your dream?” she reported. “My fantastic-grandparents immigrated from Italy when they had been 14 and 16. They had constructed a property. It was a stucco residence on a hill, and that was the household that most people went to on the weekends for the big Sunday supper. To me, that intended home.”
Even even though Ciccone worked with a local architect to layout her 2012 “Mediterranean-Italian house on a hill,” everything about it was her notion. She gave him photographs of how she needed the household to glance. He turned her eyesight into fact. Their only disagreement was when he advised 10-foot ceilings and she insisted on 12 toes.
“When I designed it, I desired it to be large but not truly feel large,” she mentioned. “If you are in that house — I’m a single man or woman, I lived alone — you do not come to feel like you are in this mansion and you’re shed. … But you can place 200 persons in that house with no challenge.”
Ciccone was meticulous about all elements of construction, together with putting a metal beam on possibly facet of the residence. She wanted the flexibility to transform the floor plan without the need of staying told that she couldn’t remove a wall mainly because it was load-bearing. She designed the property available for wheelchairs by widening doorways, introducing an elevator and putting in no-threshold showers.
But beyond the useful, Ciccone strove to make every portion of the dwelling feel unique.
“Every place had to have a wow,” she claimed. “Every place had to have a thing one of a kind and interesting. … I really got into the specifics. At the time you get into it, it gets like an mental training.”
Due to the fact there are so a lot of of them and due to the fact they are this kind of a big portion of the household, Ciccone paid out specially attention to the home windows, which she sourced from Canada. She desired Canadian home windows for their European-model components and since Canada has these types of cold winters that its windows are built to the best electrical power-saving expectations.
“For me notably, when you work a ton, just having that gentle tends to make me come to feel like I’m not doing the job,” she explained.
The windows also body an at any time-transforming vista, letting her to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors without the need of owning to be outdoors.
Quite a few of the elements she sourced arrived from Italy to give the home a correct Italian come to feel. She made the sink in the initially-floor powder area and had it fabricated in Italy. She developed the fireplaces and experienced them crafted out of marble in Italy, except for the fantastic area hearth, which is made of limestone. That hearth is so large that the 5-foot-3 Ciccone can stand inside it. The kitchen area array is by Ilve, an Italian maker of luxurious kitchen appliances.
Whilst Ciccone chosen quite a few of the finishes herself, she was happy she employed interior designer Shazalynn Cavin-Winfrey to work with her.
“She was very considerably a useful human being,” Ciccone mentioned. “I think she most likely saved me $100,000 in the building [of the house] since she appeared at the ideas at the commencing.”
Cavin-Winfrey gave her assistance on significant sections of the project but also the small specifics. It was Cavin-Winfrey’s notion to develop a attractive pattern in the owner’s toilet ground and shower and to put in swing-arm lights in the media area.
Despite the fact that the assets had a swimming pool, Ciccone experienced to negotiate with Fairfax County to change it with a greater one particular. The county wanted to make confident the new pool would not disrupt a watershed that includes a stream that operates through her property.
Due to the fact her career has taken her all more than the world — including most lately to Rome, where by she labored as a unique adviser to the United Nations Meals Techniques Summit, a function of the Global Fund for Agricultural Advancement — Ciccone has rented out the household the earlier number of yrs. Now she’s determined to aspect with it.
The 5-bed room, 8-rest room, 9,300-squre-foot residence on 2.2 acres is mentioned at $8.9 million.
906 Turkey Operate Rd., McLean, Va.
Approximate sq.-footage: 9,300
Features: The 2012 Mediterranean-model household has 12-foot ceilings, stained quarter-sawn white oak flooring, spiral stairs in the two-story library, a two-story good space with a limestone hearth, a wine cellar, an elevator and a screened porch with a fire. A breezeway connects the three-motor vehicle garage to the home. The landscaped grounds have a swimming pool.