I had not seen Alessandro in about fifteen years, even though for a time he dated my historical best friend, Anna, in Florence and they have remained good friends to this day. Anna has kept me abreast of his general doings and goings on over the years, but I had no idea that, 1) he speaks near-perfect English and 2) in addition to being one of Italy’s top-ranked gardeners, he is also a writer.
On a recent trip to the U.S. to promote his book and re-establish some of his connections, he graciously agreed to meet with me at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx and gave me a charming interview. Here is the first part of the interview, with some photos of the gardens he has worked in.

New York Botanical Garden

• Alessandro-Tombelli-18-minsAlessandro-Tombelli-part-I-11-mins

Ilaria: I’m here with my friend Alessandro Tombelli, whom I’ve known for at least 20 years or something like that, and he’s from Florence, as am I. He is an extremely talented and well regarded in international circles gardener. Recently he decided to write a memoir called The Garden Connection: Life and Adventures of a Tuscan Gardener. As I understand it’s a combination of a personal memoir and a professional memoir, is that right?
Alessandro: It is.
Ilaria: Okay, so, Alessandro, tell me a little bit about the genesis of the book. Why did you decide to write it, how long did it take you…? Walk me through the process.
Alessandro: I decided to write this book a few years ago, when I was in Texas. Thanks to my garden connections it happened that I was in Texas, working with a landscape architect from Dallas, and I got involved in all these travels and big projects in the area, and I was thinking about how a few years before I was in Italy, I was in Florence, doing some gardening in these historical gardens. And then I was projected in these big, big goings on in Dallas, Texas. I thought, well, you know, this would be a nice story. It would be a nice story for a book. And all the travels I’d done between and all the people I met. I was there because I met somebody, and I met somebody through somebody else. So there was a real garden connection.
Ilaria: That’s great. And between the time that you first thought of writing the book and the time you wrote it, what happened? Why did it take you several years to actually start writing it?
Alessandro: Well, it happened because I’d been thinking for so long but I was not brave enough to write it. And also you have to concentrate on writing. I remember when I was thinking about this book, when I was taking notes, I had some ideas… Oh, this would be a nice idea for my next book. But I kept it for years before I decided to write it. And one day I wrote something like maybe ten pages, and I kept it maybe for a year or two, I don’t remember exactly. And it happened that I was in North Carolina once, and I was taken to a readers’ group, and when I realized that I said, “Oh, listen, I’ve written something. I have ten pages of my book.”
Ilaria: Quote, unquote.
Alessandro: And this friend said, “Oh, you should bring it and read it.” So I had my ten pages saved on a thumb drive, so I printed them out, I took them to this reading group, and everybody was listening. They said, “Alessandro, we like it, you should write this book.” I said, “Come on, I’m just a beginner. Maybe I should have a ghost writer, someone who writes for me.” Because I’m not a writer, I’m not an author. And they said, “No, you have to write it down.” And my friend, this friend who brought me there, she was…she is a writer, she’s an author. And she said, “If you write the book I’ll edit it for you.”
Ilaria: Wow.
Alessandro: So that was a big kick. So I came back home and after a few months, we corresponded, you know, asking if she was serious about it. And she was committed to doing it.
Ilaria: That’s a very big commitment.
Alessandro: Yeah. And she had no idea, poor Jack, how big a job she was going to do for me. Because I do speak a little English, but my written English was terrible. Anyway, I spent one summer, I was home in my little apartment in Florence, and I started writing. Spending like six, eight hours per day, because I was committed to do it. I had to do it. And she said, “Alessandro, you must finish it by the end of August, let’s say.” So I did it.
Ilaria: And how long did it take you altogether?
Alessandro: Altogether a couple of months.
Ilaria: That’s not long at all.
Alessandro: Yeah.
Ilaria: That’s wonderful.
Alessandro: And many things happened in between. I mean, the computer crashed once, so I had to rewrite part of the book because I lost everything. And a few other things. But anyway, I did it.
Ilaria: It’s so funny to see this: “San Donato in Collina and England.” [Come dire, Compiobbi e New York.
Alessandro: No, fa ridere, eh.] It’s very funny. I tried to put some humor in it.
Ilaria: You know what’s so funny is that I relate to this so well. Because this is my life. I’m half Florentine and half New Yorker, and I can relate… and when I was little I lived on a farm, you know, where I picked the grapes and the olives…
Alessandro: So you know what I’m talking about.
Ilaria: …and the chestnuts. You know, all that stuff.
Alessandro: Were you there in 1985 when the big chill came?
Ilaria: I was. Oh, yes. When all the olive trees died.
Alessandro: They died. I remember at that time, I was not really involved in agriculture then, or horticulture either. But I remember the countryside around Florence had changed completely. Because if you look at Florence from the hills… Well, Florence or the Tuscan countryside… you have this kind of silver gray of the olives.
Ilaria: Of course, I know exactly what you mean, that silvery color.
Alessandro: The season after that big chill was brown. It was awful, awful.
Ilaria: I know, it was so shocking. All that snow. I had a Vespa then. It was buried under the snow, I mean completely buried, for three weeks. When finally the snow melted and I could get my Vespa out of there, I kicked it to start it, and the metal pedal [la leva della messa in moto, fatta di ghisa], it just broke in two from the freezing cold. It was so cold. The first few days there were no buses, because Florence was not equipped. Florence is not equipped to deal with that kind of snow.
Alessandro: Nowadays it’s still not.
Ilaria: Yeah. But it never used to happen like that.
Alessandro: No, it was a special year.
Ilaria: And I had to go everywhere on foot. I had to walk everywhere. I lived in, near via dello Statuto, in via Paoletti, and I had to walk from there to the University… which at least then the University was in Centro and not out in the middle of nowhere where it is now. So it was within walking distance but it took me three-quarters of an hour to go to school every day. Wow. So tell me a little bit about the book.
Alessandro: So the book starts about my life in Florence, the beginning of my horticultural interests, some friends, some private life, people that I met at that time, people who made me to be as I am now. And then from the time I spent in England. It was the year 1987 when I decided to spend some time in England. So I moved there and I worked for one year in a very important garden called Wisley Garden. And there the horticultural world opened for me. It was a revelation, you know. “Oh, I see what gardening is now.” It was not just for the plants, for the garden, but also the people. So I met all the gurus at that time of the English international gardening. People that I had never heard of before. And you know, together with the other students we were going to meetings, we were going to see gardens during the weekend. So it was an amazing year for me. So back from that time in England, when I was in Italy, I was a bit shocked, you know, because from the highest level of horticulture in the world, you go back to Italy, back home, and you do nothing like that. So I was doing some little gardens here and there, but nothing very important. So I spent a couple of years, I was quite depressed. And I wanted to go back to England, I wanted to go back somewhere else. I was thinking about Australia, I was thinking about South Africa, but nothing happened, until I had the opportunity to work in a rather well known garden in Tuscany. It’s called La Foce. So I was able to work in this place. La Foce is a garden in Tuscany. It’s in the Val d’Orcia, the Siena province, and it’s one of the most beautiful gardens in Tuscany, nowadays. So I became the head gardener, and there again I was happy. Because after my time in England I could do some practice. So I was involved in the restoration of the garden, in the upkeep of it, and I was absorbed in all these beautiful things I was looking at, you know there were concerts in the villa, nice people, interesting people, riding horses. So many things, it was really one of the best times of my life. And that opened another door. La Foce opened the door to Villa I Tatti, which is another important villa in Florence, which is owned by Harvard University.
Ilaria: Of course.

La Foce

I Tatti #1

I Tatti #2

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Shortly after I started the turtle^haus blog I also started another blog with a literary theme, called turtle°ink. As time has gone on and I have developed ideas for both blogs (and another soon to come) I came to realize that there is an overarching theme to all my passions and interests, and that is *story* and *character*. By story I mean both real-life and fictional stories, and by character I mean both real and fictional people. So why not unify under one banner. I think turtle^haus readers will enjoy reading book reviews, interviews with authors, listening to writers read their work and watching videos featuring writers and storytellers, as well as the decorating, decluttering, interior designing, architectural themes they already enjoy right here.

And why not host all this in the *haus* of Turtle? Some of you may have been wondering about the turtle. What’s with this turtle thing, already? Well, I’ll tell you. Years ago I was about to get married and my Italian aunt wanted to give me a wedding present that would last me forever. She had recently acquired a tattoo (a Popeye anchor on her arm, no less) as an acknowledgment and celebration of herself as the “anchor” of her family. So we decided that she should give me a tattoo as a wedding present. It would last forever (and has in fact outlasted the marriage, but that’s a story for another day).

Having never entertained the idea of a tattoo before, I didn’t know what image or symbol to choose. A few days later she called and said, “I think you should get a turtle on your arm. You are so persevering, when you decide to do something, slowly and surely you achieve your goal. You never give up and you always reach the finish line.” So we went to a tattoo parlor in Florence (at the time there weren’t many at all) and I picked a sea turtle because I love the water.

About a year later I moved from Florence to New York, and about a year after that I started my subtitling and translation company, Turtle Ink (get it, get it?). Ever since I have used the turtle to identify all of my public doings. Email, websites, online handles, and so on. This is where Swimturtle comes from.

The funny thing is, I have a different reason for liking the turtle as my personal symbol. Because of my nomadic childhood I grew up thinking that the only thing that would ever make me happy or complete would be to have a house of my own, where I could put down roots and from which no one could ever evict me. Finally, at the age of 34 I achieved my dream. I finally had a house of my own, in a little town on the outskirts of Florence, the city where I was born, did most of my growing up and schooling, and one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Well, the minute I was done moving in and getting settled, I realized that I didn’t *need* it anymore. I felt a huge load lift from my shoulders. I felt as if I could just walk out the door with the shirt on my back and never miss a single thing, house included. I’ve felt that way ever since.

The turtle carries its home on its back, has no possessions, and is at home wherever it goes. When it feels vulnerable, it simply withdraws its extremities inside its protective shell for a while (which it can also do just to take a nap and be left alone). Being half Italian and half American I am very much at home in both countries, but never completely at home in either. Too American to be a perfect Italian, too Italian to be a perfect American, it turns out I’m a perfect New Yorker. And a pretty good turtle.

If you have received duplicate posts, I apologize, but it will not happen again, since from now on all feeds and email updates will come from turtle^haus. Enjoy!!

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Welcome to turtle^haus!

I started this blog because I want to share my experience in interior design, house renovations, and how the space we live in affects our lives. I like to think of our lives as stories, and of us humans as storytellers. I think that by improving our relationship with the spaces we inhabit we promote the feeling that we are the authors of our lives and not vice versa. We want to tell the story, we don’t want the story to tell us.

In various phases of my life I have lived in… let’s say less than ideal conditions. I grew up half in New York and half in Florence, Italy, and have been exposed to an aesthetic sensibility shared by the populations of both sides of the Atlantic. I realize that this is a great privilege and I would like to share some insights with all of you.

Let’s start with the story of my kitchen/dining room table:

my kitchen table

Two summers ago, after being away from Florence for several years, I had the opportunity to spend a whole month there, without my family, with a group of students from New York. I was the graduate assistant of my professor (also from Florence) in a class on Art and Museum Librarianship. The professor and I went ahead of the class, a week early, to set up all our visits and lectures and tours and schedule – a lot of work but extremely fun – and once the other students arrived we started a grueling and rewarding regimen of two tours with lecture a day, with a brief break for lunch on the go. Our days started promptly at 9 a.m. and ended usually by 6 p.m.

In the evenings we were free to do as we pleased, and this of course was wonderful for me, as I have family and lifelong friends in Florence. I got to see most of my friends and relatives at least once and many close friends and family several times. It was a very, very happy month!

At the time, summer 2006, I was living in Brooklyn in a rented apartment. I had a small house in a small town outside Florence that I had been trying to sell for a while, and finally it looked as though I had found a buyer. I knew that it would take some time, but I figured that when I returned from Florence I would start looking for a new house, in Brooklyn, slowly (the search for a new home will be the subject of many posts, but we won’t get into that just now). In any case, let’s say that I was at least subconsciously paying attention to things related to houses, living, living spaces, furnishings, etc.

One evening I was invited to dinner at the house of a very dear friend, one of my oldest, and his family. His name is Stefano and we have known each other nearly all our lives. He had been married for many years with his first wife and they had three lovely children, a son, Agostino, and a set of fraternal twins, Bernardo and Camilla. Now, after his separation, he had a new companion, the lovely Germana, and together they had had a delightful little boy, Damiano. Shortly after my arrival at their apartment, after the introductions, Stefano pointed out to me, “the kids’ names are in alphabetical order, A, B, C, D, had you noticed?” I hadn’t, but it’s the kind of thing that tickles me. He’s a physicist (I think he’ll win a Nobel prize one day, he says I’m crazy, but that’s another story).

Stefano had spent the last hour or so before my arrival preparing one of the best risottos I have ever tasted. It contained onions, garlic, artichokes, sausage, other things I can’t remember, and was cooked with the most delicious homemade stock ever seen east of the river Arno. They had also bought a couple of enormous buffalo mozzarella balls and there was a huge bowl of cherries. I had brought ice cream, so we had enough for a great meal.

Finally, the risotto was ready. While Germana prepared Damiano for the night, putting him in his pj’s, Stefano proceeded to “set” the table. I put the word in quotes because his method was slightly unorthodox and different from the way I had been taught by my mother. He put all the plates in a pile in the middle of the table, with the glasses and cutlery and a pitcher of water. Then he put a trivet next to the plates, on which he put the steaming pan with the risotto, a bowl with the mozzarella in its own water, condiments and bread. All this he put in the middle of a square table, about four feet long on each side. Then everyone sat down together, and he just grabbed plate after plate from the pile, filled it with food and passed it around until everyone had a plate.

The three big kids had each invited a friend over, so there were a lot of people around this table. Three adults, six teenagers of various ages, and a toddler. Not only did we all fit around this table, but everyone could help him or herself from the middle of the table without putting their arm in someone else’s face. I found this arrangement so delightful that I consciously took a moment to analyze why it was so pleasing.

This is what I came up with:

• The fact that the table was square allowed for this reaching without putting our arms in each other’s faces;
• The size of the table (about 4′ x 4′) while not gigantic, could accommodate three people per side, if necessary, and I thought that it would take up less room than a rectangular or oval table for twelve;
• This setting everything in the middle gave a great feeling of community, highlighting the communal aspect of coming together like this for a meal.

Right there and then I thought to myself: I don’t know where I will be living, I don’t know what kind of house it will be, how big it will be, what the kitchen will look like, but I know one thing. If and when I get my house, I will have a square table and I will serve my meals like this.

I will skip over, for now, the process of acquiring my house, which is in itself a kind of magical fairtytale which I will definitely share with all of you, but I will say that it came to pass that I did in fact acquire a home in Brooklyn, and it is the home of my dreams. I have the kitchen of my dreams and in it is the table of my dreams.

Here is a shot in afterschool snack mode:

afterschool snacks

This table was a gift from my sister Ippolita. We bought it at ABC Carpet in New York. The painting you see in the background is by a wonderful artist friend of mine. Her name is Kloe and you can check out her blog here.

Since finishing the renovation on my house I have had only a few dinner parties, and I have usually set the table the way I was taught (old habits are hard to break!), with a setting for each person at their place and the food and condiments in the middle. But once in a while I remember that night with my friends in Florence, and I promise myself that the next time I have friends over, it’s going to be set like that, everything in the middle, and people can serve themselves or help themselves randomly!

If you have a table you’re proud of or would like to comment, please do so!

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