Tenuta Berroni

A few kilometres from Racconigi's royal castle, the Berroni estate keeps an 18th-century villa, its historic stables and an agricultural hamlet alive as a working farm. The estate's restoration and agricultural activity preserve a tangible example of Piedmont's aristocratic country life.

Why it matters

Racconigi's story is usually told through the Savoy castle, but the Berroni estate shows the other half of that world: the agricultural land and country residences that aristocratic households ran alongside their town palaces. Built as a self-sufficient villa-farm in the 1770s and still producing food today, it is a rare case where the estate's eighteenth-century logic — the villa living off its own fields — has been restored rather than merely remembered.

What to notice

The villa is an eighteenth-century residence with French-inspired taste, set in a centuries-old park at the head of an agricultural borgo completed by a chapel and rustic service buildings. A restoration completed in 2022 returned the interiors to eighteenth-century colour schemes. The estate also preserves agricultural dependencies, including the Scuderie, former stables converted to accommodation, and buildings grouped with the fields. The most telling feature, though, is continuity of use: lavender, lemon balm, mint and sage grown on the estate are distilled on site into essential oils, and the farm's own milk goes into the AgriBerroni gelateria's artisanal ice cream.

Context and history

The estate was laid out in 1773 as a countryside residence for the noble De Laugier family, conceived explicitly as a self-sufficient farm-villa: the operator's own historical account describes a villa isolated in open countryside, complete with a splendid park, a chapel and rural outbuildings, living entirely off its own production. This model of the aristocratic fattoria on the plain between Turin and Cuneo was typical of the Savoy hinterland in the later eighteenth century, when Racconigi itself was being reshaped as a royal residence. The property passed through later owners and remained an agricultural holding, which is why the borgo of service buildings around the villa survived as a unit.

The AgriBerroni project combines restoration with agricultural production. Herbs including Piedmontese lavender are distilled on the estate, and its milk is used in artisanal gelato; the project also works with the University of Turin to preserve local lavender varieties.