Lifestyle Home Celebrity Home Tours How Sting and Wife Trudie Transformed a Dilapidated 16th Century Tuscan Villa into a Dream Vacation Home By Janine Rubenstein Janine Rubenstein Janine Rubenstein is Editor-at-Large at PEOPLE and host of PEOPLE Every Day podcast, a daily dose of breaking news, pop culture and heartwarming human interest stories. Formerly Senior Editor of music content, she's also covered crime, human interest and television news throughout her many years with the brand. Prior to PEOPLE she's written for Essence, The Cape Times newspaper and Los Angeles Magazine among others. On-screen Rubenstein can be found featured on shows like Good Morning America and Entertainment Tonight and she routinely hosts PEOPLE and Entertainment Weekly's star-studded Red Carpet Live specials. Follow the San Francisco native, Black Barbie collector and proud mom of two on Instagram and Twitter @janinerube People Editorial Guidelines and Praxilla Trabattoni Updated on December 1, 2020 03:02PM EST Photo: Jaime Travezan Talk about getting away from it all! After a 16-week stay in Pisa, in the summer of 1990, rocker Sting and Trudie Styler decided Tuscany was where they wanted to buy property for the ultimate vacation home. “We had been shown an infinite number of very large, cavernous palazzos with gorgeous al frescos,” Trudie tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, “but which were all, how should I put this…” Sting steps in saying “Mausoleums!” Inside Jessica Chastain’s Stunning New York Apartment with Old Hollywood Ties But by 1997, just when the couple thought they’d have to give up on their dream, “We happened to come across Il Palagio,” she says of the 16th century estate outside of Florence that once belonged to Italian nobility and had fallen into disrepair until they came along. Beppe Brancato; Jaime Travezan Jaime Travezan “I fell in love with the view,” says Sting. “It overlooks some of the most luscious Chiantishire hills.” That’s not to say the property didn’t require a ton of work. “The vineyards were in a big old mess, the soil was parched, the land was very dry, but through it all we saw that it wanted to come back to life,” says Trudie. “It was desperate to be loved. We saw that it had a huge potential.” Now, after almost a decade of painstaking renovations, Il Palagio comprises a whopping 865 acres, and boasts 6 guesthouses, 5 lakes and a forest of 8,000 trees. WATCH THIS: How Sting and Trudie Styler Keep Their Love Alive in Tuscany “One of my favorite activities is watching movies with the whole family,” says Sting of spending time with his and Trudie’s six kids, including two from his previous marriage. “We have a huge outdoor screen we call Cinema Paradiso.” When they’re back home in the U.K. or at their place in New York City, Il Palagio is a sought after event space, often becoming the backdrop for lavish weddings and others’ dream home away from home. Jaime Travezan. RELATED: PHOTOS: Inside Steph and Ayesha Curry’s Sophisticated California Home With a tennis court, outdoor pizza oven, wine cellar and antique fountain that used to belong to Italian actress Sophia Loren, not to mention offerings like on-site massages, horseback riding lessons, yoga classes and a state of the art recording studio, the couple worked hard to create a place that any and everyone could fall in love with. As Sting puts it, “The whole estate has a very benign, sweet energy.” Close