California’s Prop 8 may have prevented them from having the wedding of their dreams, but Christian Scali and Stephen Lewis’s transformation of a 16th-century farmhouse in Italy is now allowing them to bring many others’ wedding dreams to life.
It was love at first sight for lawyers—and husbands—Christian Scali and Stephen Lewis, who had been searching for a property in Italy, as they pulled up the dirt road and through the rickety wooden gate to what would become Villa Ardore.
“It was the moment we saw this place,” says Stephen. “You're at the top of the hill with a view of the rolling hills with the grapevines, and it faces west, and the sun sets right in front of the house. It was almost like this magical thing.”
The couple had fallen in love with Italy, specifically the Tuscany region, after many trips over the years, and had established their own community in the town of Florence. “Eventually, we just had this whole circle of friends. We were with them when we were there, but even when we were [in Los Angeles], we would talk with them by WhatsApp and video calls.”
With an Italian-American background, Christian was always drawn to his Motherland, which spiked out of necessity when the U.S.’s political climate took a turn for the worse in 2018. “It wasn't looking good politically. And so I thought, you know what? I think it would be nice to get my Italian citizenship. And when I did that, I made sure that our marriage was registered in the Italian records. Even though they only have civil unions, they can recognize your marriage legally from somewhere else.”
When the pandemic hit, the couple began their search for an Italian retreat, with the intention of turning it into a hospitality-based venture. “We decided that we wanted some place that was in the country, but that also was very close to some major metropolitan area. We also wanted it to be in wine country because, we're not lushes or anything, but we do enjoy wine. We narrowed down relatively quickly to the Chianti area.”
The structure itself needed work, but having already renovated three other properties together, the couple wasn’t afraid of a little TLC. “We both immediately had the same vision for what it was going to be,” says Stephen.
They worked with esteemed local architect Massimo Pieratelli to keep the Old World style but give it a major upgrade in modern amenities, and intentionally designing the property to be an ideal place for wedding celebrations. Their key focus was the pool area, expanding it by 2,500 square feet, adding a party pavilion, lighting, and catering needs, as well as converting a living room into a spa room.
“When we saw what it was capable of in terms of what kinds of events we could have there and we just envisioned it, it brought us back to the gay marriage cases,” says Christian, nodding to his husband’s active role in California’s overturn of Prop 8, as well as their own quiet wedding.
Stephen, at the time a city lawyer for West Hollywood, had been deeply engaged with constitutional issues. When then-Mayor Newsom of San Francisco opened the gates to marriage equality in 2008, litigation ensued. “West Hollywood decided to become a party to that in some way, but we weren't exactly sure how. Our city attorney was contacted through somebody in the San Francisco City Attorney's office. He then contacted me and said, ‘Why don't you do this?’”
Having prior success in constitutional cases, Stephen leapt at the chance, pulling together a coalition of cities and counties around the state to support San Francisco and the individual couple suing, and penning a brief that would lead to the court hearing the case and, eventually, voting in favor of marriage equality. “In the Court of Appeal’s opinion, they basically said, ‘It's always been this way. You have no light to stand on. Marriage is between a man and a woman.’ It was so dismissive of even the idea. When I wrote the brief asking the court to take the case, I didn't focus on past cases, which is normally what you do as a lawyer,” explains Stephen. “I couldn't just say, ‘Hey, look at these other cases that show that we should win.’ But there were so many cases talking about marriage as a fundamental right of humanity, talking about prisoners being able to get married and preventing the government from interfering with people's marriages. There's all this lofty language about the fundamental human right that marriage is. I wondered, How can people say to something that's so fundamental to one's humanity, and talk about it in this beautiful way yet say, ‘Oh, but not for you.’”
Drawing from historical discrimination going back centuries, he challenged their “it’s always been this way” defense, highlighting its roots in prejudice, and stressing that it was a direct violation of the Equal Protection Clause in the California constitution, which eventually led to not only California ruling in favor of equality, but the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately changing federal law following the very same argument. “On the one hand, I do intellectually recognize that this was a momentous thing, but in my heart, I just feel like this has always been how it should be,” he adds humbly. “It's not like I did this miraculous thing. It's just that I found the switch.”
And in the midst of the legal back-and-forth that was taking place in their home state, Stephen and Christian got married, quietly, in a park on a weekday. “I had always wanted to have a big gay wedding, a big Italian family style wedding,” says Christian. “But we knew that if we got married before Prop 8 passed—if it passed—then our marriage would still be valid, regardless. But if we didn't get married, we would have lost the right unless it was overturned, and there was no guarantee that would happen.”
“So we did on August 22nd. And that was it. It was on our lunch break. We went and we had lunch in Santa Monica to celebrate, and then went back to work.”
“When we thought about the uses of the property and about what we had in terms of our wedding experience and being, in essence, deprived of a reception, we thought how it would have been nice to have a place like this where we could have gone with some family, had a big terrazzo where you can have the whole reception dinner and you can dance and do all the stuff, and yet have this nice intimate space where you could stay with some of your closest family members and just enjoy the place for a while afterwards. And we thought, man, that would be nice to do for same-sex couples all over, to provide that thing that we were deprived of.”
And so they did and dubbed it Villa Ardore, which very appropriately translates to passion.
This feature originally appeared in our V9 print issue. Grab your copy here.
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