The farmhouse sympathetically retains its ancient bones but the award-winning Swiss architects, Markus Wespi and Jerome de Meuron, have transformed the interiors into inspiring minimalist spaces, offering a uniquely contemporary take on Italian farmhouse living. Casa Olivi has been featured in Elle Decoration and Côte Sud Magazines and, as a result, is admired far and wide.

With 4 en-suite bedrooms in the main house - 3 doubles and 1 triple - and another double in the dependence, Casa Olivi can sleep up to 11 in full creature comfort. With it's minimalist design ethos, this house encourages efficient living and even our teenage boys felt the need to keep their rooms tidy and organised. The thoughtful design inspires and stimulates conversation amongst those that have never thought much about architecture, and the fusion of ancient stone and polished plaster pleases you more each day you stay.

Casa Olivi offers interiors flooded with light and carefully specified finishing touches to every detail, with bathrooms by Phillipe Starck, a sleek stainless steel kitchen, DVD home theatre, a B&O sound system spanning the whole property, including the expansive terrace. Lavishly spacious and comfortable, Casa Olivi works as a home away from home in any season, but in warmer months the huge terrace is the place to be. A contemporary pergola, with seating for 12 and a fully equipped kitchen complements the stunning infinity pool, both encouraging you to marvel at the stupendous views from dawn to dusk. 

Talking of dawn, the sunrises here are stupendous, with a dawn chorus as pretty as anywhere, including Marrakech. We found ourselves getting up to marvel at Le Marche at this time of day and couldn't resist photographing the sun creeping over the horizon each morning, before returning to bed to snooze knowing we hadn't missed the best photo opportunity of the day.

Casa Olivi is a wonderful base for exploring the surrounding areas; Treia is only five minutes away, and on the way to town one morning we encountered two farmers and their dogs sheparding 500 or more sheep along the narrow road from one field to another. It was a magical few minutes which slowed us down to Le Marche pace and thrilled us for the rest of the day. Treia is a very well-kept medieval hilltop town with a supermarket and bank on the outskirts, a good hairdresser and winding streets and squares to explore.

Macerata, with its open air summer opera festival, is just 20 minutes away. The white sandy beaches of the Adriatic coastline are less than an hour's drive close, while the up-and-coming wineries of the region, including excellent Verdicchios from Castelli di Jesi and Rosso Conero from around Ancona are worth a visit.

The villa staff - Leila and Giulia - are both lovely and well organised by highly efficient Noemi, the villa manager who speaks perfect English. We organised a range of in-villa dining experiences during our stay from excellent home-made pizza's on our first night to a 7-course truffle-infused dinner prepared by Michelin-starred chef Michele Biagiola, accompanied by oustanding wines.

Gianna, an Italian "mamma", also prepares local dishes using the freshest ingredients when required, or you can choose to self-cater, which is a pleasure in the sleek and stylish kitchen. House cleaning and maintenance, pool cleaning, gardening, WiFi, pool heating in cooler months and air conditioning in summer are all included in the rental price.

We can organise private wine tastings with passionate sommeliers Amy and Mirco (who carefully select the wines).

Cooking lessons, pecorino tastings and truffle hunting in season can all also be arranged, while a 4x4 Land Rover Defender can be hired by the day.

There is a local bar within a 2km walk and the famous gastronomic restaurant "Il Casolare dei Secreti" is just 3.5 kms away.

We highly recommend Casa Olivi as an inspiring and thrilling introduction to Le Marche and, once you have been, you will, like us, want to return.