“Every project needs a place to start from. Ours began with an empty room and a door open onto Via Nicolaci.”

When the owner raised the shutter on the space, what stood before us was little more than a storeroom: a plain, almost bare room, with a wooden French door looking out onto Via Nicolaci, the street of Noto’s most famous baroque balconies.

I had no experience in real estate. Carlo, on the other hand, was already looking further ahead. He didn’t just see what the space was, but what it could become. It was one of his greatest gifts: recognizing the hidden potential in things before it became obvious to anyone else.

We signed the contract almost without thinking twice. We had found the place from which our new life would begin.

Leaving the office, though, we didn’t go to buy furniture. We went to the sea. We gathered stones smoothed by the waves, one by one. We loaded them into wooden crates and carried them to the office. With colored cement, patience, and a lot of enthusiasm, we built our first desk.

For us it wasn’t just a table. It was our way of starting out: with what we had, and with what the land offered us.

I still remember the look on the face of the person who had shown us the space, watching us unload crates full of stones. He probably thought we were a little crazy. And maybe, at that moment, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

But that desk made perfect sense. Every stone spoke of the place we had chosen. Without realizing it, we were already giving shape to an identity.

The walls took on the warm color of Noto stone. We hung large photographs of the town. The furnishings were simple, essential, but everything spoke of the land.

When the first clients arrived, they weren’t just walking into a real estate agency. They were walking into a place that spoke of welcome, enthusiasm, and belonging.

Carlo and I were very different. He was the vision; I was the listening. He imagined what a place could become; I tried to understand what people were truly looking for. Over time we understood that our strength lay precisely in that difference.

That stone desk remained at the center of our work for years. Maps, photographs, projects, dreams, and important decisions all passed across that surface.

Today, looking back at those images, I don’t just see an old office. I see the beginning of a way of working: rooted in places, attentive to people, built with conviction from the very first day.