Sardinia’s mountainous interior is a place of sun-scorched, wild expanses that were once infamous for their lawlessness and banditry. Today, it has a rather sleepier appeal. The island is, after all, one of the world’s five Blue Zones – regions whose inhabitants regularly live to 100 – and is home to the highest concentration of male centenarians on the planet. At 85, Peppino Dore is steadily approaching that milestone. Born and raised in the island’s rugged heartland, he was a baker by profession and spent almost his entire working life getting up at 2am to begin making bread for the day. And while he may have hung up his apron for good more than a decade ago, retirement for Dore has not been an excuse to put his feet up.
In his late seventies, he bought a modest, two-storey home on the outskirts of the small town of Mores and began singlehandedly transforming it into a fantastical, marble-clad palace named Villa Dore. The house, which stands at the end of a long, cypress-lined drive, is surrounded by vast swathes of olive groves and towering eucalyptus trees. Its façade was the first thing Peppino constructed – a pedimented puzzle of geometric patterns, sculpture-filled niches and arched windows inspired by the duomo in Siena.
Over the years, he gradually added a labyrinthine network of ornamental water features, arches, pedestals and balustrades that form an elaborate walkway leading to the front door. ‘I’ve cried many times just looking at it,’ says Dore, gazing up at the building. ‘The first time was after it had just rained, and all the marble was shimmering. Only in paradise can you see something like this.’ Every day of the week, Peppino drives five minutes from his home on the other side of Mores to Villa Dore, where he spends the day working on the property. ‘Every day that God gives me, I am here,’ says Peppino.
‘When you start something you need to finish. And for me, it’s not a sacrifice. I do it with my heart.’ Peppino’s original intention was to one day live in the property, but he’s since given up on that idea. The house has instead become something of a monument to everything he holds dear: religion, art, family and his Sardinian roots. The result is a peculiar mix of iconography. Plaster replicas of the Venus de Milo and Michelangelo’s David stand alongside lions, eagles and cherubs – all gilded in gold paint by Peppino himself. Other recurring motifs include busts of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, carvings of the face of Bacchus, Roman god of wine, and the Latin phrase ‘Domine Dirige Nos’ (Lord guide us), which is spelled out in mosaics and metal lettering all over the property.
The house is also very much signed by the artist himself, with the initials PD daubed in gold or carved into pillars around the villa. In case it was still unclear who was behind the building, there are also murals of Peppino commissioned from a local artist. In one, he’s sitting astride a horse in traditional Sardinian folk costume talking to a young female villager. In another slightly more surreal painting, a youthful Peppino beams with joy as he cradles the house in his arms. Every flamboyant inch of the property is packed with patterns and symbols, The elaborate mosaics continue inside, where, in one room, Dore has constructed a font-like fountain (still to be hooked up to a water supply).
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Many of the villa’s chandeliers were gifts from a friend who found them in a church he was renovating. On the wall by the arched doorway is a mural of the young Dore welcoming guests to his home, all in traditional Sardinian dress, by a local artist he commissioned 246 000 from a carved map of Sardinia inlaid into the wall to a bronze cast of Jesus’s face (a present from the local priest) and a Dore family crest created by Peppino himself. His design consists of an eagle supporting a shield decorated with five fleurs-de-lis – one for himself, his late wife and his three daughters.
‘Just like an English coat of arms,’ he says, chuckling. Even before he bought the property, Peppino had for decades been collecting materials to use on his future dream home. ‘Everything was already planned in my mind. Since childhood, whenever I found a special piece of marble I kept it for myself. I was always putting things aside with a view to one day using them on the house.’ He still drives around the island picking up odds and ends of marble and granite, much of which is donated by cemeteries and headstone masons. This resourcefulness is necessary given his shoestring budget.
‘The hardest part of the project has been the lack of money. But if you have a strong will, you can do anything.’ Today he possesses a vast collection of stone slabs and shards, which lie stacked around the workshop next to the house. It’s here that he spends much of his day carving, cutting and polishing as Radio Maria – a priest-run Catholic station – blares in the background. Except for Wednesdays, when his son-in-law comes to help with the heavy lifting, he’s here alone from morning until evening – even during the scorching summer days when the temperature soars to well above 40°C.
His only company is the colony of stray cats that have made the garden their home since Peppino began feeding them. They dart around his feet as he stands at his workbench and perch like small, furry ornaments among the gilded statues. With the façade and outside area complete, Peppino is now perfecting the three front rooms of the house. The first floor still remains untouched by the ostentatious flourishes that adorn the rest of the house, but the wine cellar has been decked out with stone carvings and Peppino is planning on converting the small, stone outhouse into a chapel. ‘Being a sculptor is a gift from God. That’s why I choose to honour him with this house.’
A version of this article also appears in the April 2024 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers
