Villa de Vecchi

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So I wanted to do an episode on a haunted place, and so I just started kind of trawling the internet for lists of supposedly haunted places, and one of them came up over and over and photos of it are so beautiful and super intriguing. Spoiler alert. I think I don't believe in haunted places very much these days. We'll talk about. Today's topic is an abandoned mansion which has some very colorful nicknames. It's called the Red House, the Witch's House, or even the ghost House. But it was once a gorgeous and very luxurious mansion designed for a prominent citizen of northern Italy, and it's often described as haunted and having this dark history. Sometimes it's you know, like the brutal murder House. I have good news if that makes you feel squeamish. There are some interesting contradictions regarding that story. So this episode is definitely going to make our skeptics happy. But wait, you get a little bit of a twofur and we'll explain why at the end. The last segment is about a related topic, So the municipality of courtin Nova in northern Italy. So it's about thirty seven miles or sixty kilometers north of Milan. It's about seven point two miles or eleven point six kilometers southeast of Milano, on the eastern shore of Lake Como. This is an absolutely beautiful area of the country. It's lush with forests, but it is also home to a structure that is sometimes called the most haunted home in all of Italy, that is Villadeveki. So to talk about Villadeveki, we'll set the scene with the original owner, Felichia Deveki, who is also called Felix, which is what we'll call him by. But this particular piece of the episode gets a big fat caveat because there is not a ton of information about Felix de Veki available. The only resource that I could find initially that gave any of his biographical information was the Italian Wikipedia page for him. Normally we would never use Wikipedia, and there is a little more flexibility with a Halloween episode, but even so, not usually a place we would go to. However, I did pull his birth date from there. It did later get verified by something else, but he was born on February twelfth, eighteen sixteen. And there's some more information we're going to talk about later from that Wikipedia page that I think is important telling his story. But de Veki was an artist. He was born into a wealthy family, but he also became a created hero in the Italian National Guard. In his late twenties, de Veki was living in an Italy that was not yet unified, and he went on a long trip starting in eighteen forty one that took him through Turkya, Persia, India and Egypt. This journey was one that left a significant impression on Deveki, who was deeply interested in learning about the cultures of the places he visited. Several years after this trip, in eighteen forty four, Count de Veki married a woman named Carolina Franketti du Ponti. The two of them went on a long trip for their honeymoon. They traveled around to various locations throughout Italy, some of which Felix later captured in landscape paintings. We don't have a ton of painting examples of his, but there are some that have been attributed to him, and he tends to faint in the very dark sort of moody way. But de Veki's most famous achievement militarily was part of what's known as the Chinkue Giornate di Milano or Five Days of Milan. So the city of Milan, of course, has its own rich history, dating back to four hundred BCE. Over the centuries, it became a center of power as its financial and political influence grew and became really cemented. There had often been conflicts over Milan as various European powers sought to control it, but that only intensified from the Middle Ages on. From the end of the fifteenth century to the military action in eighteen forty eight that made de Veki's reputation, Milan was ruled by in order, France, Switzerland, Spain, France, Spain, Austria, France, Austria, France and Austria again starting in eighteen fifteen. From eighteen fifteen to eighteen forty eight, Austria controlled the city and made it the capital of the Lombardy region. But on March eighteenth, eighteen forty eight, the people of Milan rebelled against the Austrian forces stationed there, and after five days of fighting, the Austrians left. Milan was still legally part of Austria for another eleven years, but the men who had led the fighting were lauded as Italian heroes, and Felix de Vechi had been among them. He was well educated, well traveled, and seemed to be a man whose life was on track for success. In the eighteen fifties, Felix de Veki acquired a thirteen hectar that's roughly twenty acre tract of land in Cortanova, and he envisioned a vacation home for his family there. I read one account that said that he had visited the area and was so struck it's right there, like we said, forested and by the mountains that he just knew he wanted to spend time there because of his travels in his earlier years, he had seen a lot of architecture from different cultures, and he wanted something unique that would incorporate classical Eastern architecture, borrowing motifs from the various styles he had seen, but particularly the ones he had seen in India, and to design this home, he hired a prominent architect by the name of Alessandro Sidoli. Alessandro Sidoli was born in Cremona, Italy, on July thirtieth, eighteen twelve. His family was not wealthy, but Alessandro was an artistic child and his father encouraged him to pursue art. He eventually attended architecture school in Cremona and he learned technical drawing and then went to design school. Next, he moved on to advanced architecture education in Milan, where he attended the Brera Art Academy, and he had distinguished himself. He earned a number of prizes during this phase of his education. He was admitted as a member to the Milan Academy of Fine Arts in eighteen forty seven. In between design commissions, Alessandro started teaching drawing lessons. By the eighteen fifties, when Deveki reached out about this villa project, Sidoli had become well known and highly respected for a lot of luxurious building projects in Italy. The home that Alessandro Sidoli designed for de Veki is a marvel of Neo Gothic opulence that borrows as requested from multiple design styles, including Eastern Classical, but it does so in a way that harmonizes all of them into one cohesive style. It is designed specifically for its mountain setting, and it almost blends into that setting despite being obviously a fancy home, and part of that is because local stone was used in its construction. The mansion features an exterior that's defined by its pointed towers, arches, buttresses, and rose windows. The towers, which rise up all around the mansion's roof, were each designed with a specific view in mind to take advantage of the home's elevated site, and the surrounding area is beautiful, but it would have been spectacular in the eighteen fifties when the home was built. There was detailed landscaping and surrounding gardens, complete with a pressurized fountain. They were designed to sort of extend the design of the home. The exterior of the house was painted red, and it still retains the nickname the Red House, although today that paint has faded and more than half of it has shipped away. Yeah, there are series as to why it was painted red, whether that was just something that de Vicki really loved, or if it had some meaning or borrow from something he saw on his travels. But we don't know. The interior of the house was designed to be just as thoughtful and intricate as the exterior. It is a three story structure. It consists of a basement, a ground floor, and an upstairs floor. The basement was a work area. The kitchen was down there, as well as food storage and laundry areas, so basically the places where the help would be on the ground level, where all the areas where people would gather, including the dining room and the guest bedrooms, were also on the ground floor, and the upper floor was where Deveki's bedrooms and family private spaces were. Initially, this home was also planned to have an observatory on the top floor, but that was never completed for a reason we are about to mention. There are full wall frescoes and detailed would work. The home was thoroughly modern for its time, with plumbing and heating. Even the furniture was part of the grand design and drew from the design education that Sidolei got as a youngster and incorporated into his comprehensive rendering for the villa. Construction began on the massive luxury project in eighteen fifty four, but very deep into the construction process, Alessandro Sidolei died suddenly. That left the team to continue building without his leadership. This was when the observatory and some additional details were omitted from the construction plan. Yeah, it had like another year to go when he died. And once the villa was completed, Felix de Veki and his family spent their summers at the Cortanova property, and then, after less than a decade in the house, unimaginable tragedy struck. Maybe we're going to talk about what happened, what little we know, and whether that is even true, after we pause for a sponsor break. Okay. First, is the usual version of the story regarding Villa Deeveki as it unfolds in most places you will find online. In eighteen sixty two, Felix de Veki was away from the villa at Cortanova on a military action, but his wife and daughter were still there. When the count returned to their vacation home after being away, the scene before him was anyone's worst nightmare. His wife was dead, she had been murdered. His daughter was nowhere to be found. In the way this story is told in English language sources, Devecki launched a year long investigation before he reached a point of such despair that he died by suicide. But this is another moment where I'm invoking the Italian language Wikipedia page, because that story is very different, And to be clear, I am not fluent in Italian, and I ran it through a translator and had a friend look at it. While his story there is sad, it is not at all the trauma that has been attached to the story in the murder kidnapping version. So in the version in his Wikipedia page, Felix's wife actually died in eighteen fifty one of presumably natural causes, before this house was ever built, leaving him with two young children to raise alone, a son and a daughter who were born in eighteen forty six. In eighteen fifty Felix did not die by suicide. He died from liver disease in Milan in eighteen sixty two. So it seems that the main story that's used as the groundwork for haunting claims that Viladeveci is not really true at all. So, knowing that this murder story is apparently unsubstantiated, it turns into a fun exercise to kind of hunt down the iterations of the murder of Devecki's wife, and we're specifically not saying Carolina because she was already deceased at the time this murder supposedly happened, and she was not a murder victim. So with that out of the way, here are some of the wilder variations on the murder story. One is that the murder was particularly grizzly and that the wife's face was possibly disfigured during it. One of Holly's favorites is that the disappeared daughter was the murderer. Also, some of the murder lore ties back to Deveki's status as a patriot and a liberation hero, So there's this suggestion that the murder and the kidnapping were politically motivated and that they were part of a larger plot against Deveki by his enemies and retribution for his various activities on the part of the Italian National Guard. It does seem that after Felix's death, which again seems to have been strictly from liver disease, his brother Biagio which is sometimes spelled with Justino on the end and sometimes in Io, assumed ownership of the villa and custody of the children, but Biajo, who did not share his brother's artistic vision, made a number of alterations to the home, which shifted its style to have fewer design touches borrowed from Eastern design. The mansion is largely just as it was built in terms of its basic structure, although it has had a significant amount of degradation and collapse, but it stayed in the de Vechi family, passing from Biago to his children and so on for the next eighty years. By the twentieth century, the house already had a reputation associated with darkness and the occult, so much so that former po podcast subject and well known occultist Alister Crowley visited and stayed several nights at the villa. This would have been during the time he was working on his book The Diary of a Drug Fiend, which came out in nineteen twenty two, because he was kicked out of Italy in nineteen twenty three after one of his followers died in Sicily under strange circumstances. Our Alister Crowley episode, which discusses all of this, was published on October fourth of twenty twenty one. And we just ran it as a Saturday classic. Once Crowley became associated with the villa, the rumors about this property exploded, all of which were very much in line with the kind of talk that often accompanies stories of Crowley. It seemed as though an endless string of unsubstantiated accusations and rumors began. The house was said to be used by Devians for massive orgies. Some versions of this story say that even after Crowley had been and booted from Italy, his followers would still go to the villa and do this. Keep in mind, if you're thinking of the timeline, Biago's descendants were still living there then, so that doesn't seem very likely. Stories of murders on the property started to circulate, as did claims that people went to this property specifically to die by suicide throw in some sacrifice stories. There are rumors that both humans and animals were sacrificed there, and Villa Deveki became the most haunted house in Italy by reputation, if not by evidence. In the years just before World War Two, the family moved out. The villa was reportedly empty in nineteen thirty eight. The details of why they moved are not clear. After the war, the Deveki family did not return to the home. It changed owners several times over the next fifteen years, although none of the subsequent owners ever lived. There's been considered abandoned since nineteen sixty. Some sources indicated that the property went up for auction a number of times and received no bids, but Holly could not substantiate that. It reportedly even reached a point where it was made available to any potential owner if the person receiving the property would legally agree to restore it, but the estimated cost of that restoration is so high that nobody ever took the offer. Additionally, the Italian Environment Fund has worked to bring public awareness to the villa. Yeah, it's not clear, and it's my fault because it's how I root it. But that offer of like if you'll restore it was literally like then you can have it for free, it's yours. Yeah, similar to there are instances of places in Italy. There's always those things you'll see circulated of like you could buy a house for five hundred dollars and it's like, yes, some of those exist, but you have to sign a lot of paperwork that promises that you will restore it and care of it. It requires five million euros of work. Literally was I think the lowest estimate that I saw for just getting this property to a point where it was not going to be dangerous to people anymore with six million dollars. And that's like bare bones, just fixing the things that are about to fall, So nobody wanted to do it. The home's twentieth century reputation as a haunted place and Crowley's name specifically being connected to it, has actually been the source of a lot of the property's modern day problems. After Crowley's visit and even more so after World War Two when it was empty, the site became a destination for people interested in the occults or in Crowley specifically, and a lot of them broke into the mansion, and while they probably didn't have orgies or sacrifice anything, they sure did vandalize it. And that vandalism got worse and worse as the early issues went unrepaired, and then things kind of spi world to a point where literally, if you look at pictures, every interior wall and many of the exterior surfaces have been spray painted or just wilfully damaged the stories of ghost activity have persisted. Locals claim that you can hear a piano playing in the house every full moon. There is still a piano in the house, although it has no legs and has collapsed. It seems likely that the story of the piano playing emerged after somebody trespassed in the abandoned house and saw it. There stories circulate in the area and among tourists drawn to the property that Count de Veki is still there on the property, and there are claims that you can hear a woman screaming tied to this murder story that doesn't have any hard evidence. In two thousand and two, an avalanche destroyed most of the neighboring homes, although Villa Deveki sustained only minor damage, and this event only added to its mystique as people started to say that the house must have been spared due to some sort of paranormal intervention. In twenty fifteen, there was a significant development in Felix de Veki's story. He owned a manor house in Row at the edge of Milan, and there his travel diary from the early eighteen forties was found. This was full of information about his travels. It was considered a culturally significant find because it brought Deveki's inner thoughts into focus after a lot of this information about him had faded from the historical record. Additionally, it reveals a lot about life in pre unification Italy and why Deveki became so invested in his political stance of resistance against countries that occupied Italian cities. He recognized the importance of cultural identity in other countries and wanted to foster a scenario where Italy could develop its own identity. The travel journal became the inspiration and main feature of an exhibit titled Caravan Journal the Rediscovered manuscript The Orient through the Eyes of a Forgotten Milanese Patriot Felis de Veki, which ran in the Villa of Berba in Row in October of twenty fifteen. This exhibit was jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, the Lombardy Region, the Province of Milan and Expo twenty fifteen. In a twenty eighteen interview with Atlas Obscura, a man named Joseppin Negri joked that he was the ghost of Villadeveki. He said, quote, the reality is there are no ghosts. The ghost was me. Villadeveki was our life, our family. My great grandfather was the villa's gardener, same as my grandfather. At our little home, we used to organize cheerful dinners and lunches where we sang, played music and laughed. In response to the idea that the house is haunted and that a cold rich duols were performed there, Negree dismissed it by frankly saying, quote, it's all crap made up by crazy people. These people would sneak into the villa at night and smash up the doors. We decided to dress up like ghosts with bed sheets in order to scare them off. We were organized. I stayed at the door while my brother in law hid upstairs. He got them running towards me and bam. Boots were pretty common back then, so you could hear the sound of me beating them tac tech. It was a blast. Negree also mentioned punching one of his employees in the face in a case of mistaken identity. He thought the man was one of these intruders who had snuck into the mansion, and he went to investigate, and that is when the accidental punching happened. Negrey also kind of sadly mentioned that he could no longer bear to go inside the structure because it stayed after years of vandalism and neglect really discussed him. He said, of the once beautiful home, quote, to me, it was heaven on earth. Because of the many scary stories told about it has drawn the interest of a lot of people curious about its tragic history and spooky reputation. But there's another group of people who have an interest in visiting, and that's architects. It's said to be a pilgrimage for some architects to visit the property and see just how impactful Sidoli's design still is, even in this state of decay. Today, Villadeveki is often touted strictly as a ghost house, but there have been a number of efforts to preserve the villa. In some cases, these have not been focused on attempting to restore the site, as there's been so much vandalism and degradation over the decades that it would be just a monumental task that would involve the need for massive funding. But as recently as twenty twenty three, there have been interesting ideas about how Villadeveki could be managed and rehabilitated going forward. In a dissertation titled Atheneum Adaptive Reuse of Villadeveki into a Public Library, author Moham and Am laid out a potential plan for the site to be sustainably adapted for modern use in a way that would control the influx of visitors and prevent further damage. To be clear, this is a dissertation, it's not like a governmental initiative, but it outlines the way young architects might think about spaces like Viladeveki and how there could be a way forward for them to have a functional life in the future. For now, though this site is still in a very precarious state, there is wire around it to prevent unwanted visitors, although whether that's effective in keeping anyone out is pretty debatable. There are lots of very recent photographs from inside the house, so obviously people are getting in. The government also has prevented anyone from working on the house, in part because of its hazardous position and the likelihood that another avalanche or rock slide might happen in the area. So it seems unlikely that this particular mansion will be developed anytime in the near future as a public space. It turns out there is actually another abandoned Philadeveki with its own interesting history, and we will get to that one after we hear from the sponsors that keep Stuffy miss in history class going. We mentioned before the break that there is another Villadeveki, and this one is located not in Italy, though it has ties to Italy. It's located in Greece, on the island of Rhodes, and it is historically significant, and that historical tie is to fascism. It was built by a man who shared a last name with Felix de Veki, although it is unclear if they were related. I have seen some write ups that suggest they are distantly related, others that say they are not. I think it's a fair bet that's somewhere along the line. They may have an ancestor in common, but we don't know. Chase the a Marie de Vechi was born into a middle class family on November fourteenth, eighteen eighty four, in Cassallee Manferrato that is also in northern Italy, although it's on the opposite side of Milan, about one hundred kilometers or sixty two miles southwest of it. As a teenager, he enrolled in the Naval Academy, but did not stay there. He enrolled in law school instead at the University of Turin, and then went into law practice after graduation. Yeah I saw one biography that basically suggested that he could not hack military school. In the period of World War One, when Italy remained neutral, c Czare served in the military and rose to the rank of second lieutenant. Then, when Italy entered the war, he fought and rose to the rank of captain. In nineteen nineteen, he joined the Fascist Combat Group. He also became the president of the Turin Fascist Party. He described himself as quote a militant Catholic and an unreserved monarchy. From there he continued to rise through the ranks of Mussolini's fascist regime as the dictator, became Prime Minister on October thirty first, nineteen twenty two, and then gained and expanded his power. In nineteen thirty six, Deveki was made the governor of the Dodecanese Islands, which Italy had controlled since nineteen twelve, and one of his first orders of business there was to ensure that the main island of Rhodes had a palace worthy of Mussolini. This was also intended to be a centerpiece for the island culturally. This was important because it would make it entirely clear that Italy was in charge. There was an existing palatial structure in place on Roads That was the Palace of the Grand Master, which was built by the Knights Hospitaller in the thirteen hundreds. By the time Czzare Deveki got to Rhoads, that particular building was something of a ruin. He had a vision, though, to rebuild the site with a grand palace. Sometimes this is described as a renovation, and other times the wording makes it sound like a full rebuild. We're about to talk about a problem. That might be the reason those words are used interchangeably. This project started in nineteen thirty seven and lasted for three years. The design of the new villa is, like the other Villa Devechi, a blend of architectural styles. In this case it was Italian Renaissance with Gothic touches. This villa is often touted as being Mussolini's vacation villa, which she never actually used, but while it may have been intended for Mussolini to stay there. It was also intended to be Czardveki's base of operations on the island, so to that end it included office spaces and reception facilities, all of which were decorated with the blending of medieval and fascist design. Aside from being a symbol of fascist ideology, the construction of the new villa also obliterated parts of the original structure, erasing its history. Because this was a case where Italy was rebuilding a Greek structure and discarding elements of it in the process, it was seen as both cultural appropriation and erasure simultaneously, and this controversy was going on as this was being built. But all of it was very intentional on de Veki's part. He had been tasked with establishing Mussolini's fascist regime in the Islands in a way that was going to be obvious, clear and imposing, and he definitely succeeded. At the end of the war, de Vechi surrendered his division and went into hiding as he was sought by the puppet state of the Italian Social Republic after the show trial known as the Verona Trial. Deveki had been in favor of ousting Mussolini, so the dictator's surviving remnant sentenced him to death. He fled to Argentina with forged papers innineteen forty seven, but returned to Italy two years later. He died in Rome in nineteen fifty nine, at the age of seventy five. Meanwhile, Mussolini was shot on April twenty eighth, nineteen forty five. The villa on Rhodes was abandoned completely by nineteen forty seven, and much like the Villadeveki and Cortinova, it fell victim to vandalism and became largely covered in graffiti. Unlike the Cortanova property, though, you are welcome to visit the villa on roads and it draws a lot of tourists. Today it is called the Mussolini Villa just as much as the Villadeveki. In twenty fourteen, the Greek Island villa was listed on the market with the hope that someone would take a fifty year lease on the property. This was part of a larger effort by the Greek government to leverage various properties of significance in the hope of paying down the country's debts. The group of fourteen properties were advertised as potential hotel spaces. Three were for sale outright and the rest of them, like this one, were offered as long term leases. In July of twenty twenty, it was reported that the villa was still on the market. Throughout the effort to monetize these properties, the Greek government has faced criticism that it was selling off its history to the highest bidder, but Greek officials have pointed out that prospective investors are likely to bring more light on them on the international stage than what they're currently getting. Also, I didn't hear anything suggesting that this particular one is haunted just Steph Wish, other than haunted by the ghosts spector of fashions. Yeah, it's interesting the way it's written about today as being one of those historical places that is significant because it shows the opposite of what the island's culture and desires were. So it's a fascinating spot. I have cute cute cute listener mail. Are you ready yieth? Okay? This is from our listener Abby, who writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy. I hope you ladies are having a great week despite the crazy times we are living through these days here in the US. There are two reasons for this email. The first is to say you two are doing the heavy lifting and getting me through my workdays and keeping me sane after any exposure to current news. Thank you. I have been listening for years and find your voices to be so calming and at the same time entertaining anyway, enough gushing, honestly, thank you. The second reason for this email, and the reason I'm excited about it, is that I was just listening to an old episode where Holly mentioned that her family raised the same breed of dogs that are written about the fox and the hound. I know this she means redbone coon hounds, and I knew I just had to write in about our dog Cliff. Picture included, UH, don't worry. I just couldn't help myself. We rescued Cliff about two and a half years ago as a nine year old guy. He had lived a hard life as a bear hunting dog in Vermont. We introduced him to the comfort of living with dinks, including treats, toys, going up and downstairs, and the beach, none of which he had experienced before. We're so happy to have him with us in his retirement because he is just the sweetest best boy. However, we never had a hound dog before, and boy, has it been an experience with a steep learning curve for us. We wouldn't change a thing, though. Anyway. Enjoy the pick of Cliff, and thanks again for keeping me saying he certainly appreciates it. Abby is exactly correct. My family bred redbone coonhounds, and Cliff is adorable. He yes, extremely cute. Cliff. Cliff is great because he has that thing that a lot of dogs get on hound breeds. It seems extra pronounced to me, but I could be wrong, where they get gray hair around their muzzle and it's so sweet. Cliff is a distinguished gentleman. But I do know exactly what she's talking about with hound dogs, which are notoriously willful and have minds of their own and can be very smart and sneaky at times, but also like some of the sweetest dogs on the planet. If you are in the loyalty of a coonhound, that dog is your dog for life. Cliff is so sweet. I want to kiss his distinguished gentleman snout and I hope he is having the best day ever. Cliff, you are very lovable. Thank you Abby for sending this to me. This was a great trip do memory Lane. I haven't really spent a lot of time with coonhounds in my recent years, so it's a nice little flashback. If you would like to write to us and tell us about your dogs, your cats, your squirrels, your birds, bird watching, I'm into it. Share that spiders, lizards, snakes, trying to think of anything I wouldn't want to see a picture of, even bugs. I'm good with it. Tracy Mayfield differently, I'm not speaking for everybody. That's fine, Okay, great, I just didn't want to, you know, presume to be like, send us pictures of your cockroaches, and you'd be like, Holly stop, that's fine. Cool, all right. Then we got plans you could do any of that at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.