Your Hosts

Proprietors Lorraine Alexander and Giancarlo Grisi opened Millbrook Country House, their first venture of this kind, in the summer of 2002. Lorraine was born in England and grew up in Minnesota and Memphis (the two extremes of the thermostat!); Giancarlo was born and grew up in Carpi, near Modena, in Emilia-Romagna. Until March 2002 they lived for four years in Liguria, on a hillside looking over the Mediterranean. There Lorraine wrote garden articles for House & Garden, art reviews for the Wall Street Journal Europe, and travel pieces for WSJE and Gourmet, while Giancarlo continued his business as a commodities agent, with clients mostly in Italy and Spain. Before their marriage in December 1997, Lorraine was a senior editor and writer on the staff of Gourmet magazine in New York for fourteen years.

Having traveled widely in Europe and the US, Lorraine and Giancarlo found themselves becoming close observers of the many lodgings--from grand hotels to B&Bs to farms-stays, or agriturismi--they encountered. As a result, they share a conviction about the quality of service to be offered guests in their historic Millbrook house, where the pace of life slows, and books and music, antiques and art, gardens and good food can be savored at leisure.