Like all great stories, this one begins with a twist of fate: in 1922, a broken-down train stopped halfway between Rome and Genoa. A young marquis, Uberto Resta Pallavicino, stepped off his carriage into the middle of nowhere — and promptly fell in love. What he discovered was a wild, untamed stretch of Maremma, a land of swamps and malaria at the southern tip of the Tuscan coast. The raw beauty of the place bewitched him so deeply that he persuaded fourteen friends to join him, pooling resources and capital to cultivate a vast expanse of land between Capalbio and the Tyrrhenian Sea — the land that would become Le Terre di Sacra.
“Our family joined the adventure three or four years after that first encounter,” explains Carlo Puri Negri, now president of the estate, which was reduced to 1,000 hectares after the agrarian reform of the 1950s. “Those gentlemen were used to owning fertile Lombard fields — but this was like Africa: poor soils, malarial marshes, wild nature.” Only a few men were brave enough to live there. “It must have been 1926 when my great-uncle arrived,” he continues. Piero Pirelli, son of the founder of the tire company Giovanni Battista Pirelli, was a gifted entrepreneur who — against all odds — decided to invest in that precarious venture.
More than a century later, some of those founding families remain. Chief among them are the Puri Negri, led by financier Carlo, and the descendants of the visionary marquis, Uberto and Niccolò Resta Pallavicino. The latter, an expert agronomist, oversees the organic estate: about 130 head of native Maremmana cattle and rolling fields of durum wheat, barley, and clover — where pheasants and wild boar roam freely.
Since 1968, at the heart of this agricultural land, stands Italy’s first WWF Nature Reserve, established on what were once hunting grounds frequented by Giacomo Puccini and noble families like the Strozzi, Corsini, and Antinori. The area encompasses the brackish Lake Burano and the sturdy Tower of Buranacci, home to around 300 bird species — herons, wild geese, woodcock, cormorants, even flamingos.
Today, Terre di Sacra’s visitors no longer gather to hunt, but to socialise at Circolo La Macchia, a private club set in a 16th-century farmhouse by the sea. The atmosphere is dreamlike: cosmopolitan design worthy of Milan or London, a moody bar serving exceptional grapefruit gin and tonics, grilled fish on the terrace, and contemporary art exhibitions upstairs, where windows frame the sea like glittering still lifes.
“My mother Giulia is the club’s president and curates its art programme,” says Margherita Puri Negri, explaining how collaborations with the contemporary art festival Hypermaremma have brought site-specific installations to the estate. Il Fontanile, once a 1930s watering trough, has been transformed by Roman ceramist Giuseppe Ducrot into a baroque folly painted in near-fluorescent yellow, while a glowing neon piece by Massimo Uberti spells out the beloved landscape of Lake Burano.
Beneath an elm tree beside Il Fontanile, Margherita sighs. “We need to clean the water,” she notes, watching the fallen leaves gather on the surface. Then she smiles: “There’s always something to do. Everyone here has at least two jobs.”
At 33, Margherita is one of Carlo’s five daughters. Raised between Milan and Capalbio, she now oversees communications, the sale of organic beef, and the estate’s slow-tourism initiatives — from glamping tents to new beach cabins along its 12-kilometre stretch of sand. An Oxford graduate in International Relations with a PhD on Italy’s energy sustainability, she worked in finance in Washington before returning home in 2015 to join the family project.
Like her parents, she lives with her young family in one of the lovingly restored farmhouses once inhabited by sharecroppers until the 1970s. The estate’s 25 rural homes are now villas or cottages for rent, each with a pool and private access to the sea. Her parents’ home, Villa dell’Orto, takes its name from the vegetable garden and rose beds beside the horse paddocks. Built in 1947 along the same railway line where the marquis first fell under Maremma’s spell, it remains a symbol of rebirth.
“The ground floor used to be a stable,” recalls Carlo, thinking back to the early 1980s. “At first it wasn’t fit for living; we’d eat in scarves and hats because there was no heating.” In the 1950s, cows still lived there. Today, the rooms are filled with books, photographs, faded hunting trophies, and delicate works of art — all coexisting in harmonious disorder.
Margherita, who married a Roman count, rarely speaks of titles. Life in Capalbio is lived quietly. “Until the early 2000s, few people knew Capalbio,” says her husband, Matteo Marenghi Vaselli. “Now it no longer hides behind Saint-Tropez or Porto Cervo, yet it remains unique: no promenade, no boutiques, no evening gelato strolls. Just countryside and sea — and not even a marina.”
And therein lies its magic. “You have to take this place as it is,” says Margherita. “If you forget something at home, you go back — you can’t buy it anywhere. But in return, you get a whole beach to yourself.”
The food here tells the same story: no lobsters or oysters, but wild boar and Maremmana beef, now a recognised Slow Food product. When Margherita rides through the pastures, she’s joined by Moreno Predellini, a 71-year-old buttero (Maremma horseman) who’s worked at Terre di Sacra for 43 years. On horseback, he guides the stately grey cattle with their sweeping horns. “They live almost wild,” says Margherita. “No barns, just shelters.” During the branding season, the region’s butteri gather — a ritual that ends with guitars and a great feast beneath the pines: peposo, red wine, and handfuls of cracked peppercorns.
When asked what Terre di Sacra means to her, Giulia replies after a pause: “True luxury here is space.” Her husband Carlo adds with a smile, “And plenty of hard work.” Everyone nods — their eyes gleaming with pride.
Curious to find out more about the Terre di Sacra? click here to read our pocket guide to this Tuscan oasis.
(This article was published in the German magazine SALON, issue 42/2025.)