An abandoned castle from 1100 transformed into the Tuscan destination of your romance-/Italy-/design-loving dreams.  Castello di Vicarello, restored by the Bacchareschi Berti family, opened in 2003.

 If you want to pick up some Italian cooking skills, you can help out Aurora in the kitchen, where she runs an informal cooking school.  That sounds like the best kind of cooking school to me.