Podere Il Cerro: A magical place among friends moves into the hills

Podere Il Cerro lies in the hills of the Val d'Arda, above the medieval town of Castell'Arquato in the province of Piacenza, at 400 to 500 metres. Until recently it was a holiday home with a horse ranch. Since 1 September 2026 it has been the fifth home of Reading Retreats in Rural Italy, the cultural association my friend Clark Lawrence founded in 1996: a place where art, music, books, a garden and people from forty countries come together, with exhibitions, concerts and parties that are still talked about years later. This film was made in the weeks of the move, before the renovation began.

At a glance

Podere Il Cerro

Location

Lugagnano Val d'Arda, province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, above Castell'Arquato

Usage

Last a holiday home and horse ranch, since 1 September 2026 the home of Reading Retreats in Rural Italy

Condition

Inhabited, house and garden being renovated; open to guests from January 2027

Visited

Summer 2026

Series

AIRSCAPES

What kind of place is this?

Officially, Reading Retreats in Rural Italy is a cultural association that sees itself as a permanent meeting place in Italy: library, gallery, concert hall and garden under one roof. Unofficially it is Clark's house, which about five hundred people visit every year. It is not a hotel. Whoever comes becomes a member, sits at the table with everyone else, helps in the garden or the kitchen if they like.

What carries the place is the mixture: a library of about eight thousand books, more than ninety per cent of them gifts, more than half published before 1970; a collection of more than five hundred works of art and changing exhibitions; concerts, readings and small theatre evenings; interns who stay for one to three months; goats, peacocks, chickens and three cats. And the parties.

The fifth home in thirty years

In thirty years the association has had five homes, among them the Castello di Galeazza, the Corte Eremo and last, until the summer of 2026, the Macchina Fissa near Borgo Virgilio in the province of Mantua. Moving here means taking some eight thousand books, more than five hundred works of art, furniture, plants and animals to a place that is not yet finished.

This time the way led out of the Po plain into the hills. A first caravan was announced for 26 July 2026, four cars set off for Il Cerro on 2 August, and on 1 September the association was officially at home at Il Cerro. The household spends the autumn settling in with family and friends; from January 2027 the doors are open to everyone again.

The place

Il Cerro is a farm of several buildings: the house with two kitchens, five bedrooms, three bathrooms and two covered verandas, plus stables with thirty horse boxes, a large barn, a hayloft and sheds. The view runs over vineyards and fields to the rock of Castell'Arquato and, on clear days, down into the plain.

The style is that of a riding ranch from the eighties, and Clark has announced that he will let it soften slowly, or celebrate it. There are ideas for the barns: studios, workshops, exhibitions, music. New terraces and beds are firmly planned; the garden is to take shape over the coming seasons. When I sent the drone up, none of this was there yet: a farm in the middle of the move and an evening that bathed everything in the light you see in the pictures.

If you want to go

Guests become members, the annual fee is 15 euros, and for lodging and three meals a day the association asks for a donation of about 80 euros per person and night. Alone, as a couple or in groups of up to fifteen. Everything else is on the page Stay; news from the farm comes in the association's newsletter.

The pictures

Stills from the drone film, summer 2026.