Vegan Country House Casa Payer

Casa Payer is a suggestive stone farmhouse which has been renovated following green building standards and is run in the spirit of veganism. It is our personal life project, one that we share with our guests, offering them ecologically sustainable holidays and homemade plant-based cooking, in a pleasing corner of the Valpellice valley, surrounded by woods and the wildness of nature. Experiencing the woods is a journey into the wilderness. It is a place where you can reconnect with nature and unburden from the stresses of daily life, following the simplicity of the rhythm of the seasons and finding time for yourself once more. To reach us, either by car or on foot, you need to take the rough track that runs through the woods from the village of Colletto for 1 km. It is a very pleasant walk.

Casa Payer came about after our return from two years spent in India, where I (Luca) and Paola met. As we are both vegetarians, we felt the need to live surrounded by nature and to follow a rural lifestyle. We wanted a kitchen garden, to make our own bread and to chop the wood used to bake it and to keep us warm. We envisaged a house nestled in the woods that we could bring back to life with our own hands.

Casa Payer came about after our return from two years spent in India, where I (Luca) and Paola met. As we are both vegetarians, we felt the need to live surrounded by nature and to follow a rural lifestyle. We wanted a kitchen garden, to make our own bread and to chop the wood used to bake it and to keep us warm. We envisaged a house nestled in the woods that we could bring back to life with our own hands. And so, the idea to host guests was born – a journey in reverse – from wandering Asia in search of hospitality, we would now ourselves be welcoming travellers.

That our household should be vegan was non-negotiable. There was no place in our world view for the dietary habits that we had previously abandoned.

After an extensive search, we finally identified a location we liked immensely: a large stone farmhouse, long overgrown by the thick woods that surrounded it. Electricity had never found its way there, nor had potable water, and no clumsy attempts at renovation had ever been made. It was exactly as it had been in the 1700s: stone, earth, wood, limestone. Our hearts opened; we were bewitched. The house was inhabited by just one man, Ottavio. He lived there with a wild sow he had rescued as a piglet from a hunt and raised…it was a sign: we knew we had to bring this setting back to life.