Eileen and Bill Senke are the amazing US couple who purchased the beautiful “White Apartment” into the historic centre of Cetona. We are going to propose you the first part of the interview to the clients.
My husband Bill and I currently live in Northern Virginia in a beautiful tree-filled and very walkable town named Falls Church just outside of Washington, DC. We have previously made our home in West Palm Beach, Florida; Syracuse, New York; San Diego, California; Newport, Rhode Island; and Norwich, Connecticut. Bill and I met in Connecticut over 25 years ago while working for the same company doing support work for the U.S. Navy. We have been married, best friends, and life partners for 27 years!
Bill is currently a Program Manager at Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock in Maryland where his focus is managing the development of advanced trainer systems for the United States Navy. I am retired from my work as a Government Contractor, although I did own and operate a shop called “The Blue Dragonfly” when living in Syracuse that sold antiques and handcrafted artisan items such as wood turnings, custom designed jewelry, original watercolor and oil paintings, stained glass, etc. and spent time when residing in Florida working as a Home Stager for Real Estate Agents and as an Interior Designer.
In September of 2017, Bill and I took our first trip to Italy. It had always been on our short list of places we both wanted to see and experience. We rented a house up in the mountains above Arezzo and, in addition to exploring Arezzo itself, we day tripped to Siena, Florence, all around Lake Trasimeno as well as the general surrounding areas of Tuscany and Umbria. And this is when we absolutely fell in love with everything about Italy! The landscapes, the people, the food and wine, the gelato, the beauty everywhere you looked and the general feeling of coming home. After our time in Tuscany and Umbria, we went on to spend a week at a wonderful little apartment in Rome. We spent the week exploring all the beautiful eternal city had to offer, walking from one end to the other and back again, enjoying every single moment.
The architecture, the history, the art, the fountains, the ruins, and more! It was absolutely fabulous and just ingrained our early love affair with Italy even deeper into our hearts. Sometimes you can’t find exactly the right words to
express your feelings. Sometimes they just are what they are and are felt quite deeply and sincerely. This is how we both feel about Italy. We felt welcome and somehow felt like we had come “home”. There is no one thing we can
say that we love about Italy, because there are a hundred little things that all add up to equal happiness – from the simple kindness of the people to strangers like us in their midst, to the stunning views everywhere your eyes
alight, to the joy of the delicious food and wine and on and on. It is a love affair that is continuous and never-ending.
After returning back to the US after our wonderful trip in 2017, we both kept reminiscing about how much we both loved Italy and how we felt when we were there together. I actually started looking at properties online in June of 2018 and then in early Fall, I asked Bill to sit down and expressed to him that I thought buying a home in Italy was our future.
He was thrilled and agreed that he felt the same way. And so our journey began in earnest. I started to plan a house hunting trip for early in 2019 and began doing intensive research online regarding the process of purchasing a home in Italy. We knew the area that we were interested in looking – Central Italy… close to the airports and big cities of Rome and Florence, surrounded by historic hilltop towns, nearby to gorgeous lakes, convenient to the main highway, and a great home base to explore the rest of Italy and other parts of Europe – and we developed a “Wish List” for specifically what we were looking for to meet our needs and wants.
..Keep reading our magazine to discover the second interesting part of Eileen and Bill’s experience..
Dreaming of living or investing in Italy?
Great Estate handpicks the best prestige properties in Tuscany, Umbria and the most beautiful Italian destinations. We help you find the property of your dreams and achieve a conscious and worry-free purchase, valuing your time and your projects.
Related articles:
Mess.rs Senke: thank you Great Estate!
Our May turns white: the sale of “White Apartment”, Cetona
Alice Ceccomoro and the sale of “White Apartment”: “Bill and Eileen.. an amazing couple!”
