Villa Manni

I met an amazing woman in the summer of 1995. I’ll call her Carol. Carol was an English professor at a prestigious college. She was beautiful, smart, funny, curious about everything, and on my wavelength. We dated for about six months and I was beginning to think we could build a life together. We planned a Caribbean vacation for the Christmas break and while we were organizing that, Carol suggested we look at renting a villa in Tuscany the following summer.

It sounded like a great idea, and I mentioned it to a friend in Washington, who told me friends of hers, Nizar and Ellen Jawdat, had a villa in Orte, about fifty miles north of Rome. Villa Manni was built on Etruscan foundations in the middle of two hundred fifty acres of fields, vineyards, and forest.

Nizar and Ellen had met at Harvard during World War II, while both were studying architecture after the college admitted women and foreign nationals to fill the lecture halls left empty by all the young American men who had gone to war. Nizar was born in Iraq.

Nizar’s father, Ali Jawdat, rode with T.E. Lawrence’s Arab army and was the inspiration for Omar Sharif’s character Ali in the film Lawrence of Arabia. After the state of Iraq was created in 1921, Nizar’s father served as Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Minister of the Interior, Foreign Minister and Iraqi Ambassador to Britain, France and Washington under King Faisal and his Hashemite successors until the 1958 Ba’athist coup. His son Nizar originally bought Villa Manni as a base for his efforts to get his extended family out of Iraq.

Over the years the estate became Ellen and Nizar’s peaceful retreat from the heat and bustle of Washington summers. They worked together to make Villa Manni an aesthetic showpiece; a balance of old and new, comfort and the Italianesque ideal, and they liked to share it with their friends. Villa Manni could be rented by those whom the Jawdat’s knew and trusted. My friend arranged for Carol and me to meet them at St. Luke’s, their D.C. art gallery, after we returned from the Caribbean.

On the eve or our departure for Anguilla, Carol announced she had decided she didn’t love me after all and was breaking up with me, but she really liked the sex so we should still go the islands for two weeks and break up after. It was a gut-punch. Why should I go off to an island paradise with a woman who had declared her intent to dump me? But then, why not? I looked at it the same way I watched a movie – it wasn’t real, yet I was prepared to suspend my disbelief so I could enjoy the story. It was a surreal, lustful vacation, but eventually the credits rolled across the screen, sad music filled the movie theater of my mind, our aircraft landed at BWI, I headed south for Alexandria and Carol traveled north. We never saw each other again.

But I had this appointment to meet Ellen and Nizar Jawdat, and they were expecting to meet me and the woman who would accompany me to Italy. I had become excited about the idea of a villa in Italy for the summer. I still wanted to do it, and what I had heard about Villa Manni made me think I couldn’t find a better place. I also didn’t want to go alone.

There was a woman with whom I had taken many trips over the years to places like Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic. Patricia Forrester was an accomplished artist. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Smith and her master’s from Yale. Her work hangs in many museums and on the walls of knowing collectors, and she was represented by galleries in New York, Washington, San Francisco, and London. We saw the world in the same light, enjoyed sharing our views on everything, shared the same politics, liked the same music and theater, liked travel to the same tropical places, loved dancing together, made each other laugh, and I was enriched by being included in her world of art and artists. Funniest thing she ever said to me: we were walking past Olsson’s bookstore on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown and their display window was full of Richard Brautigan books. I smiled to myself remembering how much fun I had had reading Trout Fishing in America and A Confederate General from Big Sur when I was a teenager. I asked Patricia if she had read Richard Brautigan. She said, “Read him? No. Fuck him? Yes.” She had, when she was living in San Francisco many years before. Cracked me up. I had to stop walking I was laughing so hard. It was all in the delivery.

When we traveled together, she would spend her days painting and I would spend mine diving, sailing, or just laying back in a hammock reading paperback novels, then we would have our evenings together, exploring towns, restaurants and live music.

We had tried being lovers in the early years of our friendship. Absolute disaster. Patricia was the most fiercely independent person I’ve ever known. The more intense a shared moment of intimacy, the more extreme her determination to run away afterwards. But after cooling off, sometimes for years, we would find each other again, and the cycle would start over. We finally accepted we couldn’t be lovers but still needed each other and invented a relationship that worked; worked so well that a few years later, when I married Windy, now my wife of nineteen years, Windy understood the nature of my friendship with Patricia and saw that she wasn’t a threat to her or our marriage, but was a person she could like and trust. Windy and Patricia became good friends.

I asked Patricia to come to Italy. Her first question was, “Who am I replacing?” I explained how I had arrived at my current situation, and that while the whole idea had been Carol’s, I wasn’t going to let her vanishing act ruin an excellent plan and I would be delighted if Patricia would share it with me and the first step in making that happen was for her to come with me to meet the Jawdats. We had already spent years learning how to travel together and enjoy each other’s company. I’ll admit, it hadn’t been easy. Patricia is the only person I know who has an entire chapter of a book by Alice Adams dedicated to how difficult a traveling companion she could be. But I also had a unique insight into her emotions thanks to an academic text by her second husband, Paul Ekman, devoted entirely to analyzing Patricia’s facial expressions. Ekman, then a professor at UCSF, was the writer and inspiration behind the TV series Lie to Me. Not always a good thing, having a reference manual on how to read a friend’s inner thoughts. There were times when what I saw there sent me diving for cover. But this time I could see she was going to say yes long before she did.

Our meeting with the Jawdats, in their sitting room with tea and biscuits surrounded by old masters’ works, was awkward at first but as we talked and learned about each other the tension eased. We looked at photographs of Villa Manni and shared a little of our backgrounds. Patricia had never met the Jawdats, which was surprising given the small size of the D.C. art world, but Patricia was part of the contemporary art scene and the Jawdats and St. Luke’s gallery were a wonderful part of the old world. Nizar was a renaissance man, steeped in the complexity and subtlety of many cultures, fluent in many languages, and educated in the history, politics, and religions of the world. Ellen was a New England native; smart, insightful, cultured, dignified, and I had the feeling she could look straight into the soul of anyone she met. No need for a psychologist’s crib book she. We passed muster and the Jawdats agreed to let Villa Manni to us for the summer.

A direct flight from Dulles to Rome landed us in Italy early on a June morning. We picked up our rental car and headed straight up the A1, dropping off the autostrada at the small village of Orte Scalo to pick up the house keys from Luigi, the villa’s caretaker, at his café across the street from the train station.

Over espresso, Luigi gave us directions to the villa and all the other minutiae we might need. Water was a great surprise. It turned out all Orte and its surrounds drew water from a spring on Villa Manni’s land, so our water was free. Luigi also told us that Villa Manni, unlike many of the old estates that had changed hands over the centuries, had retained its wild asparagus and truffle rights. I had noticed this sort of thing on previous trips to Italy – signs on a property’s perimeter identifying the owner of asparagus and truffle rights. Villa Manni’s had never been sold off. Luigi said we were free to harvest whatever we could find. Had I known, I would have packed a pig.

Leaving the café, we stopped by a market and picked up basic foodstuffs, wine, beer, gin, and vodka – just the essentials – and set off to follow Luigi’s directions to the villa, whereupon we immediately got lost. In the pre-GPS world, paper maps were king. Or they would have been had they showed every dirt path on private land leading to estates nestled in the foothills of the Apennines. It took an hour to find the villa even though it was only three miles from the café. I’m pretty sure one bridge we crossed was for pedestrians only. But when we finally pulled up in front of the villa, I felt an enormous wave of satisfaction and relief. It was every bit the Tuscan villa as I had imagined. Never mind we were in Lazio. Photographs can deceive, and I wasn’t sure what the reality would be, even after looking through Ellen’s photo album. In the event it was even more than I had hoped.

The massive wooden doors gave entry to a welcoming foyer. Beyond the foyer was a spacious living room with fourteen-foot ceilings and an enormous, ornate, carved stone fireplace. A wall of French doors opened onto a veranda running the width of the villa. The house was built on a slope, putting the main floor and the veranda on the second level, looking out across the Tiber river valley. Vineyards, forest, and fields of brilliant yellow sunflowers stretched as far as the eye could see, with the nearby medieval hilltop town of Orte and two others in the distance clinging to their rocky perches. It had been hot in Rome, but here it was a perfect seventy-five. The house had been closed up for months. We opened all the French doors and then the windows on the opposite side of the house to allow a cool, cleansing breeze to sweep away the mustiness. There was a bedroom suite on the main floor with a sitting room, bedroom, and en-suite bath. Patricia claimed it for her own. The main floor also had a large study, a dining room with an illuminating clerestory, a roomy, well equipped kitchen, and a pantry. Up a broad, open staircase to the next level, one hallway led off to two bedrooms and a shared bath. Another hallway took me to an ancient tower with the master suite. That was for me. Below the main floor were four dormitory-like rooms with bunk beds, a game room, another bathroom, and laundry facilities.

After a shower and a change of clothes, the travel grime had been washed away and jet lag was setting in. With a simple dinner and a glass of wine I was happy to sit on the veranda and listen to the quiet. Only the sound of an occasional train announcing itself in Orte Scalo interrupted the peace. I don’t even remember the sun setting or finding my way up to the tower and falling into bed.

Next morning I was rested and full of excitement, ready to explore. I found Patricia in the kitchen making coffee. Remembering what Luigi had said, I asked if she wanted to wander around the estate and see if we could find some wild asparagus. She said, “NO!” I was more than a little taken aback. What had I said? Was this a harbinger of what the entire vacation would be like? Would it be worthy of another chapter in someone’s book about the horrors of traveling with Patricia? I’d been there before, and I didn’t want to be there again. Patricia handed me a cup of coffee and I sat at the kitchen table, sipping and eating day-old bread. Patricia finally sat opposite me and apologized. She explained her visceral reaction.

I knew she had been raised on a farm in Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Polish immigrants who, in a bizarre twist of fate, anglicized their name to Tobacco at Ellis Island, then became tobacco farmers. But there was a lot I didn’t know. Patricia told me that, with the exception of the dead, frozen months of winter, she and her brother Richard started every day before sun-up harvesting asparagus from her father’s truck garden. The very last thing she wanted to do was go hunting wild asparagus. Her father was an abusive drunk, and she had fled her family and the farm she hated as soon as she was able. She wanted nothing in her life that reminded her of those early years. I will say that she tempered her feeling in later years and when her parents were both gone there were a few things she held onto from the farm, like the copper rooster weathervane from the barn, which now sits atop my house in California.

Patricia could be happy and sad, sometimes very sad. She often battled deep depression. Years later, when she was afflicted with a sudden, rapidly progressing dementia, she took her own life with an overdose of pills washed down with vodka. At her memorial service, an invitation-only affair of artists, art dealers, and her closest friends, her brother Richard told stories of their hard childhood on the farm and explicitly called out Patricia’s hatred of harvesting asparagus. I was up next, and on a whim started with the story of my suggesting we hunt wild asparagus at Villa Manni and her emphatic, single word response, “NO!” Only gallery-owner Chris Addison laughed out loud, although I could see painter Sylvia Snowden trying hard to hold it in. It was a good joke, and I’m absolutely, positively certain Patricia would have laughed loud and long. I told many other stories of my travels and adventures with Patricia. I was the only one there who had really spent time with Patricia the person and not Patricia the artist. At the reception following the service, many people said they were so grateful to hear my stories and to know there was a rich, funny, warm, and complex person beneath her formal persona. I had always known how compartmentalized Patricia kept her life. Every relationship was discrete and she never gossiped. It may not be obvious but I knew it to be part of her independent spirit. But with her degree of independence came deep loneliness. The great sadness inside me was that she died alone, feeling afraid and abandoned, in no small part by me.

But that was fifteen years after Villa Manni. Then, there, in Italy, a great adventure was just beginning.

For the first time on any of my trips with Patricia she made time during the day for exploration and just being a tourist. We visited all the hilltop towns between Orte and Florence. My brother Gray and his disastrous girlfriend Margot visited for a week. Not even Margot’s domineering manipulation of Gray could diminish the joy I felt having him there and sharing a road trip around Monte Argentario. Patricia and I made frequent day trips into Rome to visit ancient sites, architectural wonders, museums, and the Vatican.

Still, most days, Patricia would paint and we would cruise into a nearby town for another outstanding meal. We noticed we were often seated at the best tables and sometimes ahead of others. It was only when restaurant owners and maître d’hôtels started saying, “So nice to see you back again so soon, Mr. Martin,” that I had a clue what was happening. It had happened before. In those days, I was told I bore a striking resemblance to Steve Martin. We both grew up in Orange County, California and spoke with the OC accents of our generation and we both had naturally white hair at a young age. I’m told we also looked alike. I had managed to get internet service at the villa and did some late-night web browsing and found out Steve Martin had rented a villa for the summer in the neighboring town of Amelia. I was happy to mildly and quietly deny I was Steve Martin while enjoying the preferential treatment that only increased as the summer wore on. Early in August Patricia and I were in Rome for the day and walking past Harry’s American Bar on the Via Veneto. In the display case by the entrance were photographs of Steve Martin and Martin Short partying it up at Harry’s the night before. An American husband and wife and their two tween children, a boy and a girl, were standing in front of the case admiring the photographs. I leaned in over the man’s shoulder to see the photos when he turned and looked at my face. His eyes got wide and he looked back at the photographs and then at me and said, “Kids, look, it’s St-t-t-eve M-m-artin!” The kids and his wife kept staring at the photographs and the young boy said, “Yeah, I know Dad. And Martin Short. I can see the pictures! Duh!” I smiled and winked at the father, then turned and caught up with Patricia, who had kept walking. I could hear the father trying to explain himself as the distance between us grew. In perfect Patricia style, she was mad and said, “I’m tired of hearing this whole damn Steve Martin thing everywhere we go! I want it to stop!”

Note to self (at the time): Send Alice Adams a letter in case she’s thinking of updating her chapter on Travels with Patricia Forrester.

Later in August we closed up Villa Manni for a week and took a train and boat to Capri. Of course, it was beautiful and the nightlife was magical and all I could think of was I would rather be there with someone I loved romantically. No disrespect to Plato, but the allure of Capri is for lovers. The Island had been a romantic getaway spot for Romans for more than two thousand years. Never mind that emperor Tiberius threw his enemies off the cliff of his villa into the ocean below. I’m sure he did it with a certain élan.

Three years later, when I was dating Windy, I brought her to Capri, checked into the Hotel Quisisana, and knew I was right about the Island’s magic. Ah! A brief aside. Penny Marshall was staying at the Quisisana the same time we were. Her messages, many messages, kept ending up in our pigeon hole at the front desk and all my attempts to correct the staff were futile. Penny and her friends would usually have cocktails on the hotel veranda at the same time as Windy and I, before heading out for dinner. We made it a habit to hand the messages over to Penny while we waited for our first Bellini. At least she didn’t mistake me for Steve Martin. Maybe she got so many messages the hotel staff just stuffed the overflow in the “other Marshall” pigeon hole when hers was full. I think that was it.

Back from Capri at Villa Manni we put on a Pavarotti  CD, opened up the doors and windows, poured a glass of Orvieto wine, laid out a platter of antepasti and enjoyed the afternoon and all the remaining days of summer in peace and tranquility.

Patricia’s painting of Capri’s I Faraglioni remains my favorite of all her work. It hangs in her Baltimore art dealer’s home. I need to do something about that.

In her will Patricia left me all her possessions with the exception of paintings by her hand and her condominium. I already had quite a few of her paintings (except for I Faraglioni!) and she gifted her remaining portfolio to museums and other friends, dealers, and artists. Her condominium in the Mendota she left to the long-suffering doorman. Patricia was like that.

Nizar and Ellen Jawdat became close friends and I spend many happy evenings discussing matters of great social and political import with Nizar over various exotic meals and libations. About fifteen years ago Nizar suffered a stroke and no longer recognized most people. He passed away early in 2017, at the age of 96. He and Ellen had been married 72 years.