‘Sopranos' Star Lorraine Bracco Reveals She Still Owns $1 Home in ‘Sparse' Italian Town—5 Years After Documenting Gut Renovation on HGTV
Bracco, 70, was born and raised in Brooklyn and now lives in the Hamptons; but five years ago, when the opportunity arose to snap up a home in Sicily—where her father's family is from—she leapt at the chance, even documenting her renovation of the dwelling on HGTV's hit series 'My Big Italian Adventure.'
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Bracco explained that, when she purchased the abode in Sambuca di Sicilia, it was a 'sparse town' that was 'hoping to attract residents,' and believed that a one euro home program was the ideal way to bring in more people and revive the economy.
'I still have my 200-year-old villa in Sambuca di Sicilia, in Sicily. I bought it for one euro in 2020,' she shared. 'The sparse town was hoping to attract residents. My renovation was featured on the TV series 'My Big Italian Adventure.' The people there are so warm.'
During her renovation of the home, Bracco told HGTV that she would be splitting her time between New York and Italy in order to oversee much of the work that was being done to her property—which was in a very rundown state and needed a drastic overhaul before it could be lived in.
She gave herself and her team five months and $145,000 to complete the project, which required a roof replacement and for the dwelling to be stripped down to the studs.
At the time, Bracco revealed that she was actually the one who reached out to HGTV to ask if the network would be interested in documenting her renovation process, explaining to the New York Times that she knew she'd face a multitude of challenges along the way, not least because she spoke no Italian and had never actually visited Sicily before.
'There would have been a lot of reasons not to do it, but I was so intrigued,' she explained. 'I said to myself, what do I have to lose? What is the downside?'
Still, there was a great deal to be done, with Bracco noting that while, on paper, she had purchased a townhouse, in reality she found herself saddled with 'three freakin' rock walls.'
'I mean, it was a disaster,' she went on.
So much so that Bracco ended up going well over budget, she revealed—spending between $250,000 and $300,000, around double what she had planned for.
The actress, who is also known for her roles in 'Goodfellas' and the TNT drama 'Rizzoli & Isles,' did not reveal to the WSJ how often she visits the property; however, she noted that she has just made another exciting real estate purchase a little closer to home.
'Today, I live in the Hamptons on Long Island. I moved into my first house out here about 20 years ago,' she said. 'At the time, my kids promised to come and stay all the time if I bought it. And they did. I recently sold it and bought another contemporary home.'
Bracco is a longtime New Yorker, having been born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where she and her family lived until she was 9, and the neighborhood became too 'dangerous' for them to stay there, she explained.
It was then that the Braccos made the move to Long Island, relocating to a 'two-story, white house with medium-blue trim,' from where her dad made the commute into Manhattan for his job at Fulton Fish Market, while her mother remained at home with the kids.
Her first brush with European living came when she was a recent high school graduate pursuing a career in modeling and was sent to Paris by her agency, Wilhelmina.
'When I arrived, I felt I'd been there my whole life. Paris was so comfortable. I started work the second day and did shoots for all the French magazines. I also modeled for Jean Paul Gaultier and became his muse,' she recalled of the 10 years she spent living in the European city.
While she was living in Paris, Bracco began taking acting classes after a chance meeting with Hollywood legend Catherine Deneuve, who told her that she believed a role on the big or small screen would be perfect for her.
After returning to New York, along with her daughter, Margaux, Bracco said that a career in acting just seemed a better fit, describing it as 'more emotionally rewarding than modeling.'
She managed to secure several roles, almost immediately, but it was her appearance in the hit movie 'Goodfellas' that really cemented Bracco's status as a Hollywood star.
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NYT Connections hints today for #787: Clues and answers for Wednesday, Aug. 6
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Mature London plane trees were uprooted. The park's central area was elevated 10 feet in order to conceal a buried flood wall. Much of the lawn was sliced and diced into a ziggurat of paver-surfaced ramps and stairs that have no clear entry points. Advertisement 7 Jon Pepper, a Battery Park City resident, said Wagner Park's new pavilion 'looks like bunkers on the Maginot Line,' a reference to France's WWII defense that failed to stop the Nazi advance. Tamara Beckwith The park's once-level, river-facing side swelled into a stepped cliff of wooden, bleacher-like seats where I saw precious few users on two sunny afternoons this week. The revamped lawn is, on paper, only slightly smaller than the original one. But it's effectively much smaller due to the way it's segmented into landscaped portions that aren't conducive to lazing and lolling. The modest concession building on the park's eastern side gave way to a lumbering red-brick structure that looms over the lawns' remnants like an intergalactic invader. 7 New Yorkers fell in love with the 3.5-acre former oasis' peaceful, river-fronting lawns that were ideal for sunbathing and taking in views of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. Helayne Seidman 7 The park's old, expansive lawn spaces were conducive to lolling and lazing. Gabriella Bass The BPCA put out a 'request for proposals' to operate a two-level, 5,000-square-foot restaurant — one-third larger than previous license holder Gigino's. The greater number of seats, combined with the pavilion's 'community center' and rooftop viewing area, will shatter Wagner Park's low-key ambience that was at the heart of its charm. How did this all happen? Advertisement Besides enriching a legion of architects, engineers and landscape designers, the mutant 'park' is supposed to protect against a theoretical, worse-than-worst case, one-day-or-someday '100-year' flood caused by rising sea levels. In fact, no such catastrophe has ever occurred. The original park was so securely engineered that Wagner Park suffered no damage whatsoever when superstorm Sandy caused the city's highest sea level rise ever recorded. 7 Locals led a fight to save the old Wagner Park that ultimately failed. Gabriella Bass All of landfill-based Battery Park City was designed to withstand any conceivable high water. Which was why, as New York Magazine reported and illustrated, the entire three-mile long complex 'shone brightly' after Sandy while most of the rest of Manhattan was dark. Local residents fought fiercely against losing their beloved oasis, but in the end, the 'resiliency' lobby of climate-change alarmists carried the day. Of course, New Yorkers don't want a woke lesson in saving the earth. They want a park easy to love — which, at Wagner Park, will live only in memory.
