Standing inside the villa’s music room in a lemon-yellow floor-length dress, JJ Martin resembles a modern-day version of the ancient Greek lyric poet Corinna, immortalised in the neoclassical painting behind her. The cascading sea of peach, saffron and turquoise silk robes visible in the gilt-framed work seemingly extend to JJ’s elongated sleeves, which split open at the elbow and drape almost to the floor. The visual rhythm continues through the room’s oversized windows, past terraced gardens of rose, laurel, cedar and sycamore, leading the eye to Lake Como’s glassy surface beyond. Climbing from the shoreline, granite and limestone mountains extend northwards to the Alps, cradling the water like a blessed baby in its foothills.
Located in the small village of Moltrasio, this 18th-century Lake Como villa, Passalacqua, is JJ’s preferred…
