This is a tale of the coast and, believe me, not all of them are: tales of the coast have their own distinct flavour, certain ingredients that are essential, and others that never appear. Anne Milliken was born in 1919 into a family from Maine that had been manufacturing yarn since the mid-19th century. The company grew and moved to North Carolina (the group still exists today), while the Millikens lived in Manhattan, where Anne grew up with her brothers. At the age of 20, she set off for Italy, where an aunt of hers had married Count Giulio Senni. There she met Mario Franchetti, “one of the most beautiful and courted young aristocrats in Italy at that time”. She visited the Fischburg castle, the Franchetti’s residence in Val Gardena (below the Saslong piste, between Selva and Santa Cristina) but was soon forced return to New York as World War II broke out on 1st September. The youngsters never forgot each other and, once the conflict was over, she boarded a military ship, disembarked in Naples, adventured to Rome, and they were married in 1945.
Ah, yes, the coast. Franchetti discovered the coast to the south of Olbia in 1959 (two years before H.H. the Aga Khan) and the deed for the purchase of land at Capo Ceraso dates back to 1960. Anyone who has ever been to Capo Ceraso will know that few headlands are so beautiful, few viewpoints over the island of Tavolara so striking, and it is still just as wild as it was then. The cape became the summer residence of the two Franchettis. For ten years, the owners and guests alike stayed in tents by the sea. Among their friends was Giulia Maria Crespi, founder of the Italian Heritage Trust and for years owner and editor of the Corriere della Sera newspaper. It was she who introduced the Franchetti family to the Milanese architect and designer Roberto Menghi, who designed the plans for Villa Franchetti, built in 1970.
Workers from San Pantaleo came to the site, some of whom would play an important role in Anne Franchetti’s life. Having lost Mario in an accident in 1976, the baroness devoted her time and passion to drawing and making ceramics. She flew to England with Menghi to meet the pottery guru Bernard Leach, sent workers to learn the trade in Cornwall and Faenza, and founded Petra Sarda, which became one of the finest ceramics ateliers in Italy. It produces objects that seem to come from a timeless everyday life, coloured with pigments made from the ashes of different woods mixed in the firing phase, the result of a lifetime of experiments. Roberto Menghi was asked to design the production buildings for Petra Sarda, in a hidden corner of San Pantaleo.
Meanwhile, house or no house, in good weather Anne continued to prefer the tukul-style buildings with no water or electricity on the coastal edge of her property. She kept a notebook in which she recorded the results of her experiments with the ceramist Angelo Pileri to obtain the various Petra Sarda colours, including the famous and most sought-after blue. She gave the villa over to be used by a Tuscan religious association that looked after young people, and was loved by all who passed through, continuing to live her life in the paradise of Capo Ceraso as a true pioneer of the coast until she was 99 years old. She moved on to the heavenly paradise in 2018, leaving behind two houses worthy of architectural tomes, the Petra Sarda company (which is still active), and a true tale of the coast.
