The Villa D'Este, a five-star hotel overlooking Italy's Lake Como

 

MILAN (By Michael Fitzpatrick, International Herald Tribune) September 1, 2006 — The lure of Tuscany's sunshine keeps bringing a gold rush of foreign homebuyers to its cypress-scented hills. But for anyone looking for something equally idyllic and scenic, yet less expensive and more resolutely Italian, the Lake District just north of Milan is an alluring alternative.

Once de rigueur as a part of the Grand Tour, the area had lost some of its charm over the years as spots with guaranteed sun grabbed more attention.

Then famous people, most notably George Clooney, began buying properties along the glacial, deepwater lakes of Como and its three nearest neighbors, Lugano, Maggiore and Orta.

In what local agents call the "Clooney Effect," anything along Lake Como now sells at €2,000 to €5,000 per square meter, or about $240 to $600 per square foot, with properties near the actor-director's compound in Laglio pushing the top end of the scale.

On neighboring lakes, properties are a good 30 percent less, although agents say that prices generally have risen a steady 10 percent a year for apartments for the last 10 years and 5 percent for villas.

Prices were quite different 14 years ago when Bob Kaiser, an American engineer, paid the equivalent of €90,000 for a two-bedroom apartment in a renovated 17th-century villa between Lake Como and Lake Maggiore. Today, he estimates it is worth €200,000.

Ralf Koklar, Kaiser's real estate agent, recalled that he was astounded to learn that Kaiser wanted to move from Hawaii to the lakes, which he admits can be cold and wet over the winter months. "I asked him, 'Why?'" Koklar said. "Everybody was thinking that life in Hawaii must be absolute paradise."

Kaiser said he and his wife, Vicki, wanted to start a new chapter in their lives. "We were certain that the Lake District was where we wanted to be," he said. "The move has proven to be adventurous, humbling, exciting, eye opening, challenging."

Kaiser now enjoys playing tennis almost every day, skiing in winter and attending the numerous jazz festivals during the long, hot summers.

And unlike the noticeable British presence in Tuscany, which some sarcastically call Chianti-shire, only about 15 percent of the property buyers in the Lake District are foreign, said Martin Hanslip, an agent who specializes in the region.

Lake Lugano, half of which lies in Switzerland, naturally has a large Swiss population, even on its resolutely Italian side, which also is a draw for other foreigners who work in Switzerland but do not want to deal with its complex property laws.

The Italians themselves have mixed feelings about the area. "We see the lakes as interminably sad during the winter," said Fanny Meroni, an interpreter who lives in Milan. "We are finding the lakes a little more appealing these days as restoration work goes on in the nicer parts. Of course, due to the demand, prices have risen."

But away from the "celebrity belt," the southwestern shores of Como around the town of Menaggio, real estate agents say there still are some bargains.

Rustici, old farmhouses in need of attention or even rebuilding, start at about €45,000, with the best buys found along the helter-skelter roads of Como's northern reaches, the farthest from Milan.

Gary Pennington and his partner, Nicola Craig, love that particular area, having discovered it on their way to ski in nearby Switzerland and Austria. "It was on one of these trips that we decided, just as a matter of curiosity, to look at buying a property," Pennington said.

Saint Moritz is only an hour's drive away, providing the kind of "dual season" potential for investment property that many buyers want, said Sheila Leavitt, who runs Italy House Scout, a search service for English speakers who want to buy in the area.

Pennington paid €220,000 for a three- bedroom apartment two years ago. Now he gets €1,000 a week in rental income during the summer and believes the apartment is worth about €300,000.