Vidal for decades lived in Ravello, Italy, at his whitewashed villa, La Rondinaia, meaning The Swallow’s Nest, overlooking the Amalfi Coast. Before that, he'd lived in Rome in a penthouse apartment overlooking the ruins in Largo Argentina. It was featured in Architectural Digest, October 1985. In 1994, Architectural Digest featured La Rondinaia, and AD revisits that article in tribute to Vidal. An excerpt:
The moment one sets foot on Vidal’s estate one feels its tonic effect. Hewn out of a mountainside a thousand feet above the Mediterranean, the eight acres of terraced land present staggering views of sea and sky, of tiny coastal towns and toylike dwellings painted in pastel hues that change with every passing hour. The whitewashed villa clings to a craggy cliffface, as if to defy gravity and graphically account for its name—La Rondinaia, The Swallow’s Nest. The air is pure and scented with rosemary, thyme, and wildflowers; the quiet is rarely broken by anything louder than birdsong.
Read the article at www.architecturaldigest.com
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