There was a lot of hunting at the time, most of all in the bird migration season and therefore they organized important feasts for which a special area of the building was created that could guest long tables with access from the manor house. It is said that the owner and his closest friends were of wide liberal ideas for the time, and that they held secret meetings at the "Boschetto", far from prying ears and eyes. In the rural area there were rooms and hearths reserved to the farmers, and in the stables there were bedding and mangers for horses which were the precious and only means of transport.
In the '900s Villa Boschetto was only used as a holiday resort and personal
hunting business, welcoming also strangers, who would leave the village taking a few things
with them only to enjoy the peaceful countryside and the sea bathing, in an absolutely clean
and inviting sea. Also horse breeders from Latiano, 30 km far, were welcomed with their horses
which they rode to the beach for healthy sea baths.
In the early 60s progress brought electricity, the construction of a coast road
which connects Taranto to Gallipoli favouring men and trade.
Unfortunately this evolution, positive in some way, has taken away a part of the Mediterranean
scrub, the sand hills with reeds bending with the breeze in which we played tag and hide and seek on our
way to and back from the seaside, the absolute silence and the sounds of nature and it has made the voice
of the sea grow faint.
Once upon a time there was…and now there is Villa Boschetto…
We have been here for four generations we are in love with our land with our house and we live in it
trying to keep its old glamour. We respect its uniqueness, its environment made of ancient pine trees,
tamarisks, junipers, flowers, animals, red land, sand, sea, furious east winds and lashing north winds…
Once upon a time, one and a half centuries ago, there was Villa Boschetto more or less half way between Torre Molini (where there is Campomarino) and Torre Borraco. According to an 1825 military map we can find that this area was called "Boschetto", due to the many pine trees and other forms of spontaneous vegetation. This explains its name which hasn't changed even after passing to a new family of owners.
Villa Boschetto and "Masseria Mirante" (approximately 200 mt far heading North-East) were built at the same time. It is another important residential area which includes the manor house, the area destined to agricultural activities and sheep-farming, the Family Church and a series of small premises which were the residence of labourers who were hired for seasonal jobs. Villa Boschetto and the Masseria Mirante were completely isolated from Maruggio and from the few fishermen houses in Campomarino for many years because people could get there only through the olive trees hinterland and only on foot or by gig and horses for the lucky ones.
Coming from the blinding red land of the countryside, the view that Villa Boschetto offered its visitors was that of a breathtaking white island made of lime in a huge Mediterranian Scrub, filled with perfumes of wild Thyme and Rosemary, of white sand Dunes surrounded by swishing canebrakes diminishing towards the beach, and a tract of wine grape stumps "Primitivo di Manduria".
Villa Boschetto was built by a landowner from Manduria who wanted a place to live in the best possible way his passion for hunting and a summer holiday family house. Villa Boschetto experienced beautiful seasons with the presence of the landlord and his family, which was helped with everything by the service of "Casalini", (servants who lived in the house), and by a court of friends with their hunting dogs, kept in the available lodgings in front of the building.
