After years of cold, rainy summers in Germany and facing a health scare in the late 1990s, Barbara and Andreas Reuss made a life-changing decision to seek more sunshine in the south. "I didn't know how long I would live, so I wanted to fulfill my dream to have a house in the south," Barbara recalls. This dream would eventually lead to an extraordinary eight-year journey transforming abandoned stone ruins in the Italian Alps into a stunning hillside haven.

In 1998, the couple, both retired lawyers, purchased their first Italian home in the small village of Tronzano, situated above Lake Maggiore. They named their two-bedroom house Casa Arturo, after their youngest grandson, and it became their "little holiday paradise" where they spent summers hiking, swimming in the lake, and enjoying the outdoors. Barbara's health improved significantly in this sunnier climate, validating their decision to move south.

Their paradise came with an intriguing view: less than 100 feet away stood the crumbling ruins of abandoned stone stables. Year after year, the couple watched as the structure deteriorated further, with the roof caving in, gaping holes replacing doors and windows, and old stones accumulating along its sides. What initially seemed like an eyesore would eventually become their next major project.

In 2011, the Reusses learned that these ruins, located on protected land, would be subject to a new land use plan. The regulation would allow old "rustici" near the village to be rebuilt, even within the protected landscape area. "We feared someone else might buy up the properties and develop them," Andreas explains. "So, we decided to do it ourselves." Their vision was to rehabilitate the ruins into two separate but connected homes, providing more space than Casa Arturo for hosting friends and family.

The acquisition process proved more complex than anticipated. The land surrounding the ruins included four separate plots with more than a dozen owners, requiring six years of negotiations to persuade everyone to sell. An additional two years were needed to obtain the necessary building permits. However, finding an architect was considerably easier – they enlisted their son Mecky Reuss of the Mexico City-based firm Pedro y Juana, along with firm co-director Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo.

Preservation was paramount to Barbara and Andreas, who wanted to maintain the rustic character of the building that had become both part of the landscape and a recognizable landmark on a popular walking route out of town. The ruins are accessible only by an ancient Roman cobblestone road. "You can only reach these houses by foot," Ruiz Galindo notes. "A lot of people go up there on the weekends. And when I say a lot, I mean like five people, because the town is not very big."

The architects faced strict preservation constraints while designing the renovation. They had to maintain the existing footprint of the buildings, though they were permitted to increase the square footage by up to 30 percent. The roof could not exceed a certain height, and the exterior stone had to be preserved. "Nature had taken over," Ruiz Galindo observed of the existing ruin when they began the project.

The ruins' original configuration of two volumes perfectly suited Barbara and Andreas's need for two separate houses. "Over the years our family had grown, and the two bedrooms in Casa Arturo were barely enough for us and the three grandchildren, let alone for additional family members," Andreas explains. The architects maintained the rectangular shape of the buildings while enlarging them and adding a well-defined break that forms a passage between the structures and provides stair access to Casa B.

The primary design challenge involved contemporizing the chunky stone walls and roof while adhering to preservation requirements. This was accomplished through clever manipulation of the roof lines. "We played along with the different rules," says Ruiz Galindo. "You think about what your constraints are, and then you try to move around and push at the edges." The asymmetrical roof shape complies with height requirements while taming the visual weight of the stone, with ridges that appear shifted off-center and thick fascia and eaves that underscore the edges.

"The roof is sort of like a hat that's sitting to the side," Reuss explains. The rear building reverses the roof treatment, creating a dynamic where "the house on the back is trying to look over the front," according to Ruiz Galindo. Cor-Ten steel accents like gutters and downpipes provide crisp borders that contrast beautifully with the rugged stone surfaces.

Construction involved rebuilding the walls with insulated blocks – "They are kind of like Legos," Reuss notes – then finishing the exterior with stone salvaged from the original ruins. The architects wrapped the building bodies in a thin horizontal reveal to break up the volume and mark the interior floors. Square windows pierce the stone with concrete frames that protrude from the wall, providing definition and contrast while maintaining the integrity of the dry stone wall construction.

Inside the homes, the architects' playful sensibility becomes more apparent through bold color choices. "We had to put some color into it because our work is very colorful and fun," Ruiz Galindo explains. Casa A features cheerful yellows, including tiled bathrooms and kitchen counters, while blue tones dominate Casa B, where Andreas and Barbara now reside after selling Casa Arturo. The kitchen in Casa B became "like a piece of furniture itself," surrounded by warm chestnut wood that gives the off-center roof more presence.

At roughly 1,250 square feet, Casa B is slightly larger than Casa A's 970 square feet. Both homes feature two levels with bedrooms clustered on one floor and open living spaces on another, though the layouts are reversed in each house – bedrooms are upstairs in Casa A and downstairs in Casa B. This thoughtful design provides privacy while maintaining the connection between the structures.

The completed project, named Le Stalle (Italian for "stables"), serves as the perfect base for Barbara and Andreas's active outdoor lifestyle. They continue their favorite pastimes of hiking in the mountains and boating on Lake Maggiore. After days spent outside, they unwind on the kitchen terrace, surrounded by garden fragrances and views of the Alps, occasionally spotting neighbors walking the ancient Roman path.

"We live mostly outside here," Andreas reflects, "together with the wild pigs and the deer roaming. It is splendid isolation." The eight-year journey from crumbling ruins to modern hillside retreat exemplifies how patience, vision, and respect for historical architecture can create something both contemporary and timeless, providing the sunny southern home Barbara dreamed of during those gray German summers.