Since 1962, the Golf Club Carimate has grown up in the heart of Brianza, a very green region between Milan and Come. In a wooded park, the design gently undulates, lined with beautiful villas and facing a club house with the emblematic architecture of Milanese design. To celebrate its 60th anniversary, this club joined the Golfy network, so that the French discover its charms.
By Claude Granceaud-Vallat,
In 1955 in Carimate, Baroness Arnaboldi Cazzaniga decided to sell her family property – a castle in the middle of 300 hectares – to a Roman real estate developer. Between Milan and the Italian lakes, in the Brianza region, which was very popular after the war, the project to build 400 villas with avant-garde design deserved a little extra to encourage buyers where the alpine foothills are on the horizon… A golf course, for example!
At a time when British architects had the favors of clubs in Europe, the realization of the course was entrusted to an Italian, Piero Mancinelli, an engineer with a respectable handicap and capable of integrating his layout into vegetation more than three centuries old. No question of cutting down the most beautiful trees, no question of harming the calm of the new residents but over sixty hectares, man had a way to express himself. It has integrated the unevenness of this secular park, taking advantage of the different species of trees to vary its decorations between pines, oaks, plane trees, willows and many more trees, all brought back to Italy by the baroness’s forefathers during their travels around the world, during the Renaissance and the spice race. Piero Mancinelli played a lot with bunkers with flowery shapes that would not have denied a certain Robert Trent Jones.
The raised greens are not very big but on a course not exceeding 5850 meters from the bottom, we often have a small club to go and get the flag. The tree-lined fairways may seem very narrow but at the drop of the drive, as if by magic, they widen. The course is played perfectly on foot even if some carts can help the older ones. Today among the most loyal families of the sexagenarian club, the fourth generation makes its first swings in this little paradise
Beyond the course, the emblematic place of this golf course is its clubhouse!
The construction was entrusted to Vico Magistretti, perhaps the greatest talent of the Italian post-war period. An architect, furniture designer and designer, he left his mark on the 50’s and 70’s with all his ingenuity, saying, “Simplicity is the most complicated thing to achieve in the world.” In Carimate, he built a white building, spacious and very modern, breaking with the British cosy style, creating large bay windows allowing light to enter the volumes with clean perspectives, imagining the furniture of the living rooms… The famous Carimate chair with its curved armrests was born here. The one who made the Cassina house famous is still present at the restaurant. A collector…! Many students and enthusiasts of contemporary architecture and design history come to Carimate to immerse themselves in the work of this exceptional man. Spain has known Gaudí, France Le Corbusier, Italy Magistretti!
So many good reasons to come and discover this golf course during a trip between Milan and the Italian Great Lakes, to rejoice in the transalpine cuisine, the dolce vita…
Golf Club Carimate
Via Airoldi 2 – 22060 – Carimate (CO)
Tél. : +39 31 79 02 26.
www.golfcarimate.it
18T : par 71, 5850 m., Piero Mancinelli (1962).
