Mediterranean-style house in McLean, Va., is for sale for $8.9 million

Ciccone had been dwelling in Arlington, Va., and required to transfer to McLean for far more house. The prepare hadn’t been to establish a household. But the one that was on the land didn’t healthy her requires.

“For me, it was just when you are heading to develop your aspiration residence, what’s your desire?” she said. “My excellent-grandparents immigrated from Italy when they had been 14 and 16. They experienced created a residence. It was a stucco household on a hill, and that was the dwelling that everyone went to on the weekends for the big Sunday meal. To me, that meant property.”

Even though Ciccone labored with a area architect to layout her 2012 “Mediterranean-Italian property on a hill,” every thing about it was her idea. She gave him images of how she wanted the home to appear. He turned her vision into reality. Their only disagreement was when he suggested 10-foot ceilings and she insisted on 12 ft.

“When I created it, I required it to be massive but not really feel significant,” she said. “If you are in that residence — I’m a solitary particular person, I lived alone — you do not come to feel like you are in this mansion and you are missing. … But you can place 200 people in that house with no difficulty.”

Ciccone was meticulous about all facets of design, which includes putting a metal beam on either aspect of the residence. She desired the versatility to transform the floor approach with out becoming instructed that she couldn’t eliminate a wall due to the fact it was load-bearing. She created the house available for wheelchairs by widening doorways, introducing an elevator and putting in no-threshold showers.

But beyond the useful, Ciccone strove to make just about every component of the residence experience special.

“Every space experienced to have a wow,” she stated. “Every area had to have one thing one of a kind and cool. … I seriously bought into the information. Once you get into it, it becomes like an mental physical exercise.”

Due to the fact there are so numerous of them and mainly because they are these types of a huge aspect of the home, Ciccone paid out specially interest to the home windows, which she sourced from Canada. She wished Canadian home windows for their European-fashion hardware and for the reason that Canada has these cold winters that its windows are made to the greatest electrical power-conserving requirements.

“For me significantly, when you perform a good deal, just owning that gentle can make me feel like I’m not operating,” she explained.

The home windows also body an ever-altering vista, letting her to take pleasure in the natural beauty of the outdoors with no obtaining to be outside.

Many of the elements she sourced arrived from Italy to give the home a accurate Italian sense. She intended the sink in the 1st-floor powder place and experienced it fabricated in Italy. She intended the fireplaces and experienced them crafted out of marble in Italy, other than for the terrific place hearth, which is made of limestone. That fireplace is so large that the 5-foot-3 Ciccone can stand within it. The kitchen area variety is by Ilve, an Italian maker of luxury kitchen appliances.

Though Ciccone chosen lots of of the finishes herself, she was happy she employed inside designer Shazalynn Cavin-Winfrey to operate with her.

“She was really significantly a purposeful individual,” Ciccone said. “I imagine she likely saved me $100,000 in the setting up [of the house] because she seemed at the plans at the beginning.”

Cavin-Winfrey gave her suggestions on key parts of the job but also the tiny information. It was Cavin-Winfrey’s notion to generate a ornamental pattern in the owner’s bathroom flooring and shower and to set up swing-arm lights in the media room.

Although the home had a swimming pool, Ciccone had to negotiate with Fairfax County to swap it with a larger one particular. The county required to make confident the new pool would not disrupt a watershed that involves a stream that operates as a result of her home.

Since her job has taken her all around the earth — which include most recently to Rome, exactly where she labored as a exclusive adviser to the United Nations Foods Methods Summit, a perform of the International Fund for Agricultural Development — Ciccone has rented out the dwelling the previous handful of decades. Now she’s made the decision to aspect with it.

The 5-bedroom, eight-lavatory, 9,300-squre-foot dwelling on 2.2 acres is stated at $8.9 million.

906 Turkey Run Rd., McLean, Va.

Approximate square-footage: 9,300

Characteristics: The 2012 Mediterranean-design home has 12-foot ceilings, stained quarter-sawn white oak flooring, spiral stairs in the two-tale library, a two-tale terrific home with a limestone fire, a wine cellar, an elevator and a screened porch with a fire. A breezeway connects the a few-automobile garage to the house. The landscaped grounds have a swimming pool.