She Turned a 300-Year-Old Italian Estate Into a Luxury Destination

Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | RSS

On this episode of Suite Success, host Katie Cline interviews Carlotta Carabba Tettamanti, owner of Tenuta di Murlo, an 18,000-acre Umbrian estate in Italy that has been in her husband’s family for 300+ years. What began as a castle, working farmland, and a collection of abandoned stone farmhouses has, over the past 18 years, been thoughtfully restored into a luxury hospitality concept featuring private villas, hotel suites, a restaurant, and more.

In this conversation, Carlotta shares how she and her husband transformed the estate without a background in hospitality, the realities of restoring centuries-old buildings for modern guests, and how they balance preservation with luxury. She also discusses what today’s traveler is truly looking for, why authenticity has become such a powerful driver in travel, and the operational complexities of running a storied hotel across such a vast property. We also get into how she built a service culture rooted in passion, why overcommunicating with guests before arrival is critical, and the role of storytelling, history, and human connection in creating memorable stays—along with the unexpected experiences guests love most, from truffle hunting to ceramics.

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lodgify!⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠Connect with Carlotta:⁠

Watch This Conversation

Welcome to Suite Success

Do you run a short-term rental? What started as extra income can quickly turn into something bigger. And in 2026, the hosts who thrive will be the ones who take control of their systems.

Lodgify helps you do exactly that. It gives you your own direct booking website, automates guest communication, and brings all your bookings into one place, so your business runs smoothly without constant hands-on management.

Less chaos, more clarity, and a setup that actually supports the life you’re building. If 2026 is the year you want your rental to work for you, use code SWEET20 for 20% off all yearly and bi-yearly plans, valid through the end of March 2026.

That’s SWEET like Hotel Suite 20.

0:38

Meet Carlotta

Click the link in the show notes to get started.

Hi, I’m Carlotta Carabba Tettamanti and you’re listening to Suite Success.

You’ve just checked in to Suite Success. Join me, Katie Cline, for exclusive conversations with hotel executives, hospitality leaders, and industry innovators.

Together, we’ll uncover the strategies and techniques these masters of hospitality relentlessly refine. Whether you’re already in the industry or just starting out, tune in every week to unlock the secret to your Suite Success.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Suite Success. I’m your host, Katie Cline, and today, I’m thrilled to welcome Carlotta Carabba Tettamanti to the show.

Carlotta is the owner of Tenuta di Murlo, an 18,000 acre estate in the Umbria region of Italy that is now a hotel featuring nine luxury private villas and three hotel suites. The property has been in her husband’s family for over 300 years.

When they first got married, the Murlo estate consisted of the family’s country home, the Murlo Castle, working farmland, and a handful of abandoned farmhouses scattered across the property.

1:48

Vision for the Estate

Over the past 18 years, the two of them have carefully restored nine of these historic stone structures, most dating back to the 13th century, transforming them into private villas with pools and private spas, while also creating a central hub with a

restaurant, shop, and cooking school. Carlotta, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. So nice.

I was telling you before we started recording, I was just gawking over your website. The property looks absolutely stunning. And so I need to know when you first arrived at Murlo, did you immediately see the potential for what it could become?

Or when did that vision really begin to form?

Well, the first time I came to Murlo, it was just the castle itself. So that is our, the Murlo Castle in the center of the estate and this huge estate. And it was the place where me and my husband used to meet on weekends.

I used to come from Bologna, which is two hours north, and he’s from Rome, so two hours south. So we used to meet here. And so the first time I came, he was like, Oh, come to my house.

And I arrived and I said, Oh, actually, this is not really a house. So I said, and then it was so big. And so we thought, no, maybe not from the real beginning, because we were so young.

But I got married when I was like 22. So it was, we were babies. And so we got married, we had two children.

And then after the second child, we said, we want to share this paradise with other people, because we have all these privilege to have this super big land in the unspoiled countryside with so much to see around.

We have to share this with some, with other people. So we got the idea to do something about it, to be able to have people come here and discover this paradise. That was the, that was how we started thinking about the Murlo that it’s now.

Well, it took 19 years, but still, and it’s still developing. So we are adding a new house, a new villa. So yes, we do, we, we, we did step by step and we grew together with the place.

So we now we have five children and, and so the, well, the children now, maybe it’s enough. While the villas, we can do more. We can do more because we, we like, we like it so much and we feel so lucky to be able to stay here a long time.

As much as we, I mean, we, we live in Rome, but we half of the week we stay here and all the holidays. And so, so it’s really a paradise.

4:50

First Villa Restoration

That’s the main idea we wanted to share with other people from all over the world.

It sounds like such a fairytale, like everything you were saying about, you know, being long distance with your love and then coming together to this castle, and then having this idea to share it together.

And it sounds like what I’m hearing is there wasn’t necessarily a master plan for what the property has become and will continue to evolve to become, but more just that part by part. Is that right? And which farmhouse did you start with first?

And how was that an overwhelming task at first?

Well, it was a challenge from the beginning because we were not hoteliers, and my husband is a lawyer and I have a degree in economics. So we really come from different backgrounds and we we didn’t know what we were going towards.

So we started with one villa because we really liked it. It’s Villa San Savino because it was the former parish of the community, because you have to imagine that this whole estate was a farming, active farming estate until the 1960s, 70s.

So every house that we have renovated together with the other that we have, we have 80 farmhouses abandoned in the estate. There were like a thousand people living in the estate until the 1960s.

And so, for example, now we invite the last members of the family who live in the villages around to come and see how now it’s their house, where they were born, where they lived.

You imagine in the rural system of Italy, you had these families living together, like also the grandparents, the parents, the children with the wives or husbands and the nephews.

So everyone was living together in these houses and they were cultivating their land. This is the Mezzadria system that comes from the Middle Ages. In Italy it was still there until after the Second World War.

And so there was a parish of the state that is, this house contained the parish and the house of the priest and the market, the Sunday market of the community, the little like shop. And so we started from this house because we really liked it.

We liked the, and it was not so destroyed because, you know, the houses, if they’re not maintained, they start collapsing.

7:23

Building Hotel Services

You have a leak in the roof and if you don’t maintain it, the roof collapses and then the wall go back, go down too. So this house was not too bad. So we decided to start from there.

And so there was not a master plan. We just like, we renovated the house. Then we had friends from like the UK or the US who had houses in the area.

And so we said, if they buy houses in the area, there would be people also wanted to rent a house in this place. And so we started like this. And then every year and a half, we added a new house, maybe every two years.

And then we decided to have the restaurant because we wanted to give a full sense of hospitality. So we have now the restaurant, now we have the cooking school, the concierge, the office, the shop. I mean, now it’s a scattered hotel.

But we arrived here, I think, that just before COVID started, we had all the structure in place. So from 2006 until 2020 or less. And now we continue, of course.

Every year we do something different and now we’re doing a new house because we have a lot of demand and so we don’t have enough houses.

Right. Well, and you have, you said 80 on the property that could potentially be restored. And I’m sure, like you’re saying, some of them are in various states of decay or maybe not, right?

And some are in bad positions because you imagine the estate is so big.

So if you, you have to choose the one that are in most in the center of it. Otherwise, if you choose a too remote one, it’s not gonna, I mean, it’s not gonna work because of distances. That’s the most difficult challenge of our place, the distances.

And the newest house that you’re working on, is that another one of the villas that you’re restoring?

Yeah, absolutely.

And when is that going to be ready, do you think?

This is going to be ready and it’s going to be really one of our masterpieces because, you know, during all these years, we have really understood what people want and how you should do this.

Because we did everything by ourselves. No architects, no interior designers, just me and my husband together. So we really loved doing this and we made mistakes.

And then we redid the house again because we didn’t like it during the years. But now I think I can say that we understood what people look when they rent a house, like a hotel now.

So we were doing this house in the cottage, in front of the house, there is a little building that was like the oven, where there was a pizza, they didn’t do the pizza, but it was the oven of the house and where the stables were, where all the

animals were kept. There, we are going to do the private spa of the villa. So they will have a hammam, a sona, an indoor jacuzzi, indoor pool, connected to the outdoor pool. So it’s going to be a house for all seasons.

We already have this in one of the latest one we did, which is for two guests. And it was all the mill of the estate of the 13th century.

And inside the living room, there is a glass that opens up and you go in the vault where the river passed and you have your private jacuzzi inside your house and you can look up on the living room.

What a sentence. That’s incredible.

That’s our best seller. It’s like sold out all year. I mean, it’s like people get crazy for that.

So we understood that this having this hot water inside the house, private, with all the services we have in villa room delivery, you can send a chef, we do the groceries.

If you want to do nothing at all, you just like stay there and we do everything for you.

So this privilege of being in your own private spa, secluded, but in a hotel, not abandoned, with all the possibility to access all the services and experiences we offer, it’s a good mix.

11:39

Luxury Meets Heritage

So I was going to say, I imagine, especially because you’ve done nine, now almost 10, you’ve done them, you said every two years or so, that there must have been not only learnings as you reference, but confidence growing along the way, right?

Like your first one, you were like, maybe we could restore this and maybe our friends will come stay. And now you kind of have a vision for the property overall. You’ve touched on mistakes that you’ve made.

You’ve touched on things that you know your guests want. You can look and see what’s our best seller and why is that the best seller? So I guess if we back up, what were some of those early mistakes or learnings that you guys made?

And what are some things, like you said, with the indoor water, the privacy, that you want to make sure if you’re doing another one going forward, that will definitely be included?

Well, it’s quite difficult to combine real luxury with the old buildings, because even if it seems very easy, it’s not.

But we have understood that we can do it because we keep the outdoor, okay, the pool is the only thing that wasn’t there in the Middle Ages. But still, the houses dates back to the Middle Ages, so they’re very old.

I mean, the tower of this castle where I’m having this conversation from is of the 12th century. So everything is super old.

My husband just wrote a book about the history of the estate because all our guests want to know the history of the estate, the family, family pictures, etc. Everything is super, super old.

And you can, when you come here, you feel the history and you cannot do something really modern that strikes in, or so they want to allow you.

Because in Italy, this is protected by the heritage for the history of the place, for how it’s been preserved. And we have won an award for the service we have offered to all the community by restoring these old farmhouses.

So, yeah, so you cannot do too much modern, but you could, you can still ruin what it was here. So the nice thing about Murlo is that we don’t have paved with asphalt roads. We have gravel roads, which is the authenticity of the place is still here.

When you go around, it’s like being in the Middle Ages. You can still feel that sensation because it’s not transformed into a resort with the lights or with the things that you could be still in the Middle Ages.

And then you go in the gate of your house, which from outside is like stone conserved. We use the old stone. We try to keep it like it was.

But then you go inside and it’s super comfort, luxury. You have everything you want. We understood that you can do both things together if you know how.

So this was a challenge because sometimes you’re like, I would do everything super modern. No, you cannot do everything super modern. You have to be, to keep the spirit and the authenticity with the maximum luxury.

So that was a real challenge.

But you’re right. The guests, they are attracted to your property because of the history, because it feels so of the region. Yet I could imagine they want that temperature inside to feel exactly right.

They want their Wi-Fi to work. They don’t want their Netflix cutting out. You know, all these little things that, like you said, are actual challenges.

It reminds me, my grandmother, she was born in Ireland, and we actually just inherited their house. And I say house in air quotes because it is really just a farm building. And we’re not talking your gorgeous farm buildings here.

It doesn’t have indoor plumbing.

15:43

Five Star Service

It doesn’t have electricity. I mean, it really needs a lot of work.

But that is a passion project for me in the future where I really want to restore it, but much in the same way that you said, like you want it to still feel of the place of the time of the era.

But you as a modern human being want to feel comfortable staying there. So what have you seen from guests? Do they give you a bit more leeway on certain things?

Or do you hold yourself to that modern standard in terms of comfort while delivering on design and interior aspect that feels really of the place?

Well, the guests who come here are obsessed for nature.

I mean, they really like for them being surrounded by all this green and not seeing anything and like being really in a movie set in the sense that like, it seems to be, we call it our private Yellowstone.

Because, you know, yeah, so people like are fascinated by this overwhelming nature in a good sense, but they want everything and they want quickness of the service and they want responsiveness and they want the pool heated and they want the jacuzzi.

So we have added jacuzzi in all the villas. So even if we don’t have an indoor pool, but they have the hot water in every villa. So and we had to find a model of jacuzzi that was not too modern, but that was efficient.

And so it was us. But so they are spoiled in the sense that they want luxury and comfort.

But they appreciate, for example, that the roads are still gravel and the car gets dusted in the summer because it is part of the atmosphere of the place, which doesn’t mean it’s not comfort.

It’s just that you have to have also the guests who love being in the nature. If a guest wants to be in the center of the Perugia, which is the most important town of Umbria, well, they need to go there.

But if they come here, they will find silence, peace. And it’s 20 minutes from Perugia. So, I mean, we’re not so isolated in terms of things to do, things to see.

And I think that what makes the difference is that we have a very high and speed delivery service of anything. You need water, we bring you water. You want a cocktail by the pool, you have your cocktail by the pool.

With spritz and a groany, we deliver everything in 20 minutes.

How have you been able to operationalize that? Because you mentioned earlier that your husband and you are not hoteliers by training, right? But yet you are delivering on that really five-star service.

I can hear it in your voice.

You know, because we are very discerned travelers. So when we have traveled in these years, even if we have so many children, but also before the children, we know what to expect from a place in terms of service.

We have always appreciated when a place has a nice and friendly and efficient service. So that makes a difference as well for us. So we understood how to do it in a big property like this, because it’s big, really big.

It was hard at the beginning because you need to have staff, trained staff. They need to understand the importance of the efficient service, not just you who say, go to the, you need to have a chain of staff who understand this.

And this, I think that this has really made the difference for us in terms of like people appreciating the place even more, because it’s the plus that makes it otherwise is like a Villa Rental, beautiful Villa Rental in a countryside everywhere.

But here, you have the both things, you are assisted and you are. So I think it’s a very interesting mix.

And also having this big, big castle in the center of the estate that can be seen from not all of the villas, but from the majority, it’s a sense of like you are in a family estate.

19:56

Hiring and Training Staff

It’s not a chain that you, luxury chain. It’s different. It’s a boutique hotel of a family who really is in love about this place and wants to transmit it.

When people come here, they are my guests and I feel so happy to have them. And I want them to feel it. So we have people coming back since so many years.

It’s so nice.

So how have you been able to get your staff to deliver that level of service? Do you feel like it’s hiring the right people who just innately have that in them? Or is it really rigorous training standards that you have?

It’s both.

You have to hire people who are passionate for what they do. So this is the first thing that I always say. If you come here, you need to love what you’re doing.

Otherwise, there are so many jobs, you can do something else. If you come to Murlo, you’re coming to this family. This is for us, it’s the job of our lives.

It’s the labor of love. So if you are committed to this, it’s okay. Then, I teach you how to do it.

If you don’t realize, we taught personally all the staff how to do this, because… And how to behave with guests, and how to… Because you’re not always there, of course, so…

But the first thing is to find people who are passionate about what they do. I think this is a difference in our world, who makes people successful or not.

Not always only this, but it’s a part, a very important part, to be passionate about what you’re doing. Because if you don’t like it, it’s not going to be so good, I think.

The guest is going to feel it, right? Like, the guest is going to know that you don’t really care or aren’t invested. You want the guest to feel like you really care about delivering that incredible stay for them.

And I do think that’s something really special to the hospitality industry, and typically the people who are attracted to working within it.

I think so. You need to have that spirit, that you need to feel the happiness of making someone happy. And like being enthusiastic about your place and what it has to offer, and this passes to the guest.

And people appreciate it so much. They really appreciate the difference. And maybe the staff also saw me doing this at the beginning, because I didn’t have such a big staff at the beginning.

So I was me and another girl, Elisa, who is still there, and we were the two of us. And she saw me, and then she taught the other ones. And then I have a branch of lovely girls.

I also have men. But the ones who work very close to me, they are very lovely girls. It was a learn by doing for me too.

Because sometimes, of course, not having a background of hospitality, I knew what to receive in terms of customer, but sometimes I didn’t know how to deliver it.

23:11

The Piazza Hub

Because it’s a different thing to receive a service and to deliver it. And thinking in the head of who is receiving it and being clear about rules also boundaries. Because you know, everything is always possible.

Sometimes there are like limits to demands. So you need to do it professionally. And so this is something I had to learn, for example.

At what point did you create the Central Hub with the restaurant, the shop, the demonstration?

So the restaurant, very early, because we understood that nothing at high level would be possible without a restaurant.

So the restaurant was done before 2010. Then we moved the location of the restaurant to the other, because we have two entrances of the estate, which is so big. So we moved the restaurant to another entrance, but the restaurant is there since 2009.

While the central place, we call it the Piazzetta. So we have done a new website now to show these new things. The Piazzetta, we call it Piazzetta because all the Italian villages, the medieval have a Piazzetta, the square, the central square.

It’s the hub where we do cooking school, where we do the truffle tasting demonstrations. After the truffle hunting, we do the ceramic classes. We do wine tastings with our wines.

We have three varieties of wines. We have two olive oils. We do our gems, our yoghurt because we have the animals.

So most of the products you find are sourced from the estate, which is another very important side of our hospitality thing. So the place was two years ago, we finished it.

We have our shop where we sell our ceramics, that have the logo of Murlo from Deruta, which is the capital of ceramics in Italy, which is here at 20 Minutes. Then we do our cosmetics with the products and the herbs of the estate.

Wow. Do you also sell the wine and the olive oil and the gems and everything? Oh, wow.

Yes.

And when then you can order with the QR code that you have in the villa with, now you scan, you have this app and you can order the eggs from the fattoria, you can order the yogurt from the fattoria, some meat, for example, not a lot, but yes, and

That is such a beautiful example of what we were talking about earlier with the blending of the modern and the old, because what you are talking about is these products that were probably being produced in some way, shape or form on the property

going back to when these farmhouses were erected, yet now you can order them from the convenience of a mobile phone via QR code and I bet your service is going to have it delivered within a few minutes to the villa. So what a beautiful way of

Yeah, you described it very well.

Well, I’m sold.

I’m like, when will you have e-commerce, please? Because do you deliver to New York City?

Well, you know that during COVID, as nobody could travel, etc. So the artisans asked our help to sell more because they were closed. The shops were closed.

So we did this line of ceramics with the underneath. There is a crest of Murlo and then there is a design. That was an old design we have here of the house, etc.

I sold so much in the US.

I bet.

Because I did tutorials of cooking classes in the castle on Instagram and using my dishes and my plates and my ceramics.

27:19

Guest Activities

And I sold so much.

Oh my goodness.

I shipped so many plates and ceramics to the States because American people really like these ceramics. That is traditional Italy.

Americans are obsessed with Italy, that is for sure. I wish I knew about your cooking classes during COVID. I was living in the UK at the time, so it would have been a shorter shipping distance too.

I would have been ordering everything as well.

Now you have to come.

Exactly. Even better. I’d rather do it in person than over Instagram.

Absolutely.

I know you also oversee the guest activities, and you talked about some of them there, wine tasting, olive oil tasting, ceramics, etc.

Which ones do you think have become maybe more unexpectedly popular? Things that you didn’t necessarily think, oh, this is going to take off and people have really loved?

Well, one of the most sold out activities is the truffle hunting, which is maybe you, as an American, maybe you would expect this to be successful.

But for me, that I’m Italian and I have troubles in the garden, that my dog, who is here about to bark, finds in the morning, it’s like, people really want to see this? People love it.

I mean, this is the best seller of the activity together with the cooking class, of course, because the cooking class, but it’s a more traditional experience. But the truffle is like, really? It’s like, everyone wants a truffle and then they…

It’s so funny that you say that because, first of all, I think what you’re touching on here is that, the things that we almost take for granted in our day to day can be so special to somebody else, right?

Because you’re right, to us as Americans and either other parts of the world, that would be the number one thing to do in Italy. And I have actually been to Umbria before. Unfortunately, not to your property.

I will change that the next time I come to Umbria.

But the pure reason I booked the entire trip was because I was reading a farm magazine, lovely travel magazine, and they had a beautiful one-page spread, a picture, a simple picture of a plate of pasta on a plaid tablecloth.

It was like spaghetti maybe or something, but it had freshly shaved tagliatelle, yes, exactly. And it had freshly shaved truffles on it. And that photo made me read the whole article.

The article was about Umbria. And I booked an entire trip to go and do half the things in that article because I just saw that plate of pasta and I was like, wow, that looks incredible. And of course, truffle hunting was top of my list.

Of course.

And you want to see the truffle dog? I have it right here.

Yes, please.

I have a truffle.

Bring him in. Bring him in. Everyone on YouTube.

Oh my goodness. What’s his name?

Merlino.

Oh guys, you have to check this out. He is adorable. Wow.

Hi Merlino.

He is a truffle dog. It’s an Italian breed and he’s specialized in truffles. So in the morning when I take him out in the day, he finds truffles underneath the trees in the garden.

30:40

Estate Activities Beyond Truffles

Is he the one that leads the truffle hunting tour?

No.

He does it only for me.

He’s a concierge truffle hunter.

He’s a concierge truffle. Yeah, he does other things. It’s like for marketing only.

Yeah, exactly.

He makes the great photo. I would sign up for the tour just from his photo alone.

But they are the same. I mean, the hunter who comes has the dogs like him. Of course, he keeps the fur shorter, like so, so short because then in the woods with the spines, they have this curly fur, which is not good.

You have to keep it short. And then about activities, people, for the ceramic, people like to try and do their ceramic here.

31:27

Why Umbria Feels Wilder

This is something that I thought it was a bit for, not for children, but you know, not so interesting. People love it. And then they search for herbs, for wild herbs.

Like there is an expert who comes and teaches you how to distinguish the herbs which are good for eating, or like curative, or you can do a tisana, a tea. That is another activity that goes very well and is super fun. But nothing beats the truffle.

For someone who hasn’t been to Umbria before, how would you describe the region?

Well, Umbria has suffered being the smaller sister of Tuscany in the imaginary of the people because of some movies that were shot in Tuscany because, I don’t know.

Also because Tuscany has a seaside, while Umbria is one of the few regions in Italy that is not touched by the sea. But it’s close. It’s like one hour from here.

But if I have to define Umbria compared to her sister, Tuscany, I would say that Umbria is much wilder. I mean, the nature is so really more thriving. I don’t know how to say that.

It’s hillier, so it’s not so flat, while Tuscany is that you have those small hills with suppressors like you find in the pictures, and that’s it.

So while Umbria is really hilly and have these curtains and layers of hills with wood, so it’s called the green heart of Italy because of how much woods you have, how many.

Then compared to Tuscany, you have so much to see in limited kilometers around here.

33:22

Assisi And Hidden Frescoes

So you don’t have to travel a lot by car to see the best that Umbria has to offer. I think that this is something unique because generally, the regions are spread out and you have to do hours to drive.

I mean, Tuscany is four times Umbria, while Umbria is smaller. So in one day or two days, you can see more things than you would see in a bigger regions because of distances.

Also something that, for example, Tuscany doesn’t have, I mean, the traditions of the food are the same, the wines are the same, so it’s very similar. But Umbria has Assisi. Assisi is a UNESCO World Heritage Town, the hometown of St.

Francis, which is the patron of Italy. We are Catholics, and so for us, it is really important.

But the Basilica painted by Giotto and Cimabue, these painters of the 12th and 13th century, I mean, I think is one of the treasures of humanity that you cannot miss and is something not many other regions in Italy have a UNESCO World Heritage like

we have. And in the house that we have here in Murlo, which was a former castle that we renovated and has 10 bedrooms for 20 people, there is a church, a former church inside, but it’s still with the same, it’s not but has been transformed in a

living room. It’s still a church, even if it’s like without tables, etc. It’s free to also have a dinner or whatever, because it’s not really a consecrated church anymore.

But the frescoes what we found in the renovation, during the renovations are attributed to the same school of painters who did that basilica.

Wow.

So there are like the old pieces that we found are like protected with glass, etc. Because they have been attributed to, you know that the painters in the Middle Ages have the schools of pupils.

So one of the pupils of the famous one painted that church.

That’s so incredible. And as you’re renovating, you’re just uncovering true history within every space.

Yeah, it’s so cool. I mean, it was like we were like in shock, like really, oh my God, so beautiful. And it’s 30 minutes from here.

So as easy as from us.

So I think it’s really a nice region to see a lot of history, medieval towns, not so crowded, not so spoiled, not so overtourism like in other regions of Italy, for example, the Amalfi Coast, also Tuscany has these problems like Florence and the big

cities too. But Umbria is more secluded, but it’s so beautiful. I mean, it’s really beautiful. And now it’s modern.

So it has an airport at 20 minutes from here. If you fly from London, you can fly to Perugia, for example. In 20 minutes, you’re here.

And that’s very convenient for international flights. You can fly directly to Perugia. Or if you fly private, I don’t know.

We have guests who come from private. And so, yeah. And every hilltop has its own village and church.

And it’s so beautiful. From my window now, I see three.

Wow. I agree. I absolutely loved it.

We lived in the UK for six years and both my husband and I, birthdays are in February. So every year we decided we’d go to a different region of Italy for our birthdays just to really start to explore.

And Umbria was, if not our favorite, one of our very favorites. I don’t know if I could say if I had a favorite or not. I definitely had less favorites, but Umbria was way up there.

And that was what we heard from a lot of locals was almost like, we might not have that united marketing arm that Tuscany does. Like you might have heard of Tuscan wines.

If you are an American, let’s say, who knows nothing about wine, you might know wines from Tuscany are good, right?

So the marketing is powerful in the collective, but everything, what we were told is like, everything that Tuscany has, Umbria has as well.

And that actually also makes the price point affordable when you arrive as well for world-class wines, olive oils, everything that you were touching on earlier.

37:40

Motherhood And Managing Tenuta di Murlo

Absolutely, absolutely, because it’s not so, so well-known.

So we can still benefit from this not being so famous. Well, now it’s on the radar because there are many companies who have bought old monasteries, old places to renovate companies, hotel companies. So it’s starting to pick up now.

So go now, guys.

Go now before we can’t get them anymore.

So in addition to overseeing the villas, to curating the programming on the property, to managing the Instagram account, like you mentioned, to creating the guest activities, you have also said you are a mother to five children.

So what does a typical day look like for you? And how do you balance all of these very necessary roles?

Well, I have the luck of starting the business when the children were small, which is a strange thing to say, because you imagine when you start a business, you have more things to do rather than later.

But it’s the opposite in reality, because when you start, okay, you are really involved and maybe you don’t have so much help, but still you’re not so famous, so you don’t have so much business. So I was lucky enough to have my children grow.

My eldest one now is 21, then I have a 19 and a 17, and those are the ones who go by themselves at the moment.

And then I have two small ones, like 13 and nine, but having so many siblings makes the last one grow easier and less depending on you rather than the first one.

So now that the business is more developed and I have more responsibilities and more things, and it’s bigger, I have more time.

For example, now I’m in Murlo and my kids are in Rome with a nanny, but I only have two in Rome because the others study abroad, they study out of Rome.

So I’m lucky that these two can manage and they’re only two, they’re not so small anymore and they come here Friday after school. So we see them here.

So at the beginning Murlo was just a place for holiday, but now it’s not anymore, not for me, not for me, but for them. Then for them, yes, they invite their friends and they invite their boyfriends now or girlfriends.

And so it’s a family place where everyone wants to come back here. So we did a good job in this sense because they have fond memories of this place. I mean, this place is freedom because we live in Rome, in the center of Rome.

So we are in a flat. And when they come here, they are free. They do what they want.

Nobody search for them. I mean, just go.

Yeah. Do they have interest? Do they have interest in working in the family business?

I don’t really know.

Some of them say yes, but I think that they prefer to start their own careers. The big ones, we are still young, so they know that there is no need of them at the moment.

So they tend to have their dreams, and we are happy that they do have their dreams. And they start confronting life with their things. And then maybe some of, we’re not pushing it, you know, because then it makes the up.

41:14

What Travelers Want Today

Exactly.

Yeah. If you push it, they’re going to be like, no thanks. But if you’re like, hey, if you want to, I mean, one day they’re going to open their eyes and go, yeah, that looks pretty amazing.

Yeah.

But the things that come for us is that they all love this place and want to come back.

So, exactly.

Let’s hope for the good, how do you say, have a hopeful, good end of the thing. I don’t know, that somebody will take care of this. I hope so.

Yeah, I’m sure.

I’m sure. If not, you can call me. So.

Okay.

Deal. You said it. Okay.

Absolutely.

Over the years, you have welcomed guests from all over the world. What do you think people are really searching for when they travel today?

I think they search for authenticity more than anything. They want the experience and the experience is made of different things. It’s made of the history of the place, how the place is conducted in the sense, how who takes care of the place.

They love to meet people. They want to see people’s life. So my life is something of attraction.

People like to see, oh, how does she, oh, what is her, that’s why we wrote the book of the history of the family, of the place, and my husband’s grandfather, what to the world, what he did, and the Aryan grandfathers.

People like to find a story, I think. A story combined with something that they can experience as well. So hands on.

So both things are to me as authenticity, something real, something beautiful, and something in good relations with nature, you know, what I mean, that we are in a sustainable place, we don’t have plastic, we try to respect the environment, because

we are in the environment. If the environment says bye, what do we do?

43:19

Best Guest Moments

So we really, really take care of this place. So people feel it, you know, and people when they’re here, they don’t ask for changing towers every day. Yes, we do that if they ask, but people come here, they do maybe every three days.

I don’t know. So we are, we try to encourage people to be more attentive to what God gave us. So when you see outside the windows, I want to see this and that my children see this, and that is not going to be spoiled or ruined.

So, yeah.

Carlotta, I want to ask you the last three questions that I ask every guest. And the first is, what was the best hospitality experience that you have ever had?

I think the best hospitality experience is when I invite my guests here in my house. The guests who come back, maybe like also one or two years, I generally invite them here.

And I invite them for an aperitivo, my tree, I have a tree terrace on the tree. And so I invite them here and meeting them and become friends.

I mean, not friends in the sense that we go out every day, but seeing what they have to say to me, this is the best hospitality experience ever. I love doing this. And I go when I can, I introduce myself to all the guests.

If I find them on the street or at the restaurant, I don’t go knocking the door, of course. But then the ones who come back, I generally invite them here.

And knowing them and their stories and how they are and what they think about us and the suggestions they give us. Sometimes they know they have ideas in the past that we profited from their ideas. That’s the best for me.

On the flip side of that, what is the worst hospitality experience that you have ever experienced?

I think that there is not only one case, in the sense that there has been times at the beginning, I have to say that, thanks God, this doesn’t happen anymore, but at the real beginning, that, as I told you before, we weren’t, so we thought we were

understood and people did not understand what we meant. So, for example, that the restaurant is not walking distance from the villas, we thought that from the videos, from the, I don’t know, from the website was something that you know, you’re here

and how would you not know that it’s not walking distance? And so people arriving at the beginning, they maybe weren’t expecting this or were expecting to go on foot to the restaurant, and we were like, oh my God, maybe we didn’t say that.

We, so now we say everything before. So people who come here, they know where they’re coming. And as I told you, if they prefer to walk to the bar, they don’t come here.

Right.

I think it’s so important because you’re allowing them to self-select out. Like if they had any misconception, then you are communicating it to them and they can say, Oh, actually, I’m going to cancel.

And you’d rather that than them come and be disappointed because they’re going to actually have the right expectations.

For example, we offer a Peritivo at Sunset with music at the Piazzetta. But if somebody says, I’m looking for a nightlife, very, very close, I say, Well, the first nightlife is at 20 minutes by car. You have to say that.

So, you know, people, you discern then your customers. So, the one who comes, they are enthusiastic.

Exactly.

So, you select it before. So, but sometimes it was a bit tricky at the beginning.

Sure. Final question for you. What does hospitality mean to you?

And is there anyone that you think has truly mastered it? It could be a brand, it could be a person.

Well, I think in my experience, when I saw women doing it, I mean, it doesn’t have to sound so strange, but like women are for welcoming.

I mean, in their lives, they welcome their husband, they welcome their children, they transform their lives to be, to make people happy when they’re beside them. So I think that hospitality has a lot to do with women.

And so to me, when I saw a hotel run by a woman, that’s my hotel.

I love it.

Because you can feel it, that there’s a special woman touch. I think nothing to take up from men.

48:10

Suite Summary

They have their things. But I think that a general manager woman is something, I don’t know, I look up to. So I couldn’t have examples.

But when I travel, when I met the owner, and it was a woman, I knew that was a good place. Generally.

Carlotta, this has been so much fun. Thank you for taking the time, for letting you gawk over gorgeous pictures of your property. I have had so much fun chatting with you today.

Same here.

Thank you for inviting me. That was so nice. Thank you so much.

All right, everyone, it’s time for today’s Suite Summary, where I break down the key insights and actionable takeaways from today’s conversation.

Carlotta talked about how people are searching for authenticity when they travel. They want to understand the history of a place, the stories behind it, and the lives that unfolded there before they were even born.

They want to experience a little of that former life, so long as the air conditioning and the Wi-Fi still work, of course. They want authenticity in the landscape as well.

To be immersed in nature and to experience programming that grows organically from the land itself, like truffle hunting in the Umbrian Hills. And ultimately, they want authenticity in the people that they meet. Who are they?

How do they live? What is life actually like there? That is exactly what Carlotta and her husband deliver to every guest who visits Tenuta di Murlo.

And her team is able to blend this deep sense of place with exemplary service because they have watched Carlotta lead by example.

Whether she’s inviting guests into her home for drinks or personally leading one of the property’s experiences, she embodies the exact hospitality she hopes every guest will receive.

What makes this even more remarkable is that neither Carlotta nor her husband come from hospitality backgrounds. She studied economics, he was a lawyer. But they were discerning travelers themselves and people who loved hosting friends and family.

So when they began restoring these farmhouses, they simply set out to create the kind of place that they themselves would want to stay. And since opening their doors to guests, they’ve done perhaps the most important thing of all, they’ve listened.

When guests mentioned they hadn’t realized how far away the restaurant was or that they’d need a car to get around the sprawling estate, it would have been easy to dismiss that feedback. But instead, Carlotta took it seriously and adjusted.

Today, she intentionally over communicates with guests before they arrive to ensure their perception is aligned with reality.

Carlotta knows that great hospitality begins long before a guest steps foot on property and that it’s only when expectations are clearly set that you create the runway to overdeliver. And that concludes another episode of Suite Success.

If you enjoyed today’s conversation, please subscribe, rate and review the show. We all know how important those five-star reviews are. I also want to say a massive thank you to each and every one of you for tuning in.

It means the absolute world to me. And I’d love to hear from you. If you have ideas for future guests, new topics to cover, or even just want to say hi, don’t be shy.

Message me through our website, suitesuccesspodcast.com, or on social media, at suitesuccesspodcast.com. That’s sweet like hotel suite. Once again, I’m your host, Katie Cline, and I’m super excited to see you all next week.