Trudie Styler & Sting – Fields of Gold

Trudie ­Styler and Sting: Rockstar life and a love of gardening

Dissipation and excess are often part and parcel of a rock star existence. You can easily forget to slow down and take it easy when your life is always moving at top speed. Not so for Sting. The 17-time Grammy Award winner doesn’t spend his time in search of the next kick. On the contrary: He practices yoga and appreciates tranquility. Which also goes to explain why he hasn’t spent his wealth on giant yachts, private jets or other amusements, but has put his money into historic properties where beautiful gardens grow. Places of refuge, they are an invitation to decelerate and follow the rhythms of nature rather than a persistent beat.

One such property is Lake House, which Sting and his wife, actor and film producer Trudie Styler, bought in 1990. Surrounded by 24 fabulous hectares of land, it lies in Wiltshire, a southern English county between London and Bath.

For Trudie and Sting, a garden is more than an enjoyable refuge, it’s a way of life. Their children were raised on milk from their own cows, the family kept pigs and chickens and grew the food that they wanted to cook on the stove.

A Tuscan dream: the Il Palagio estate

No sooner had they laid out the vegetable beds in England when the couple began looking further afield for a place in Italy. After searching for years, they finally found a property in Tuscany about an hour’s drive south of Florence. In 1997, five years after they were married, they purchased the overgrown, run-down estate from an Italian duke.

As Sting once jokingly said when he was asked about the price: “We bought it for a song, perhaps two songs, I’m not sure.” According to the ­Daily Mail, it cost three million pounds. Called Il Palagio, the estate dates from the 16th century and is located not far from the medieval city of Figline Valdarno. The views of the Tuscan hills are breathtakingly beautiful. Sting has described Il Palagio as one of his favorite ­places on earth, saying: “It’s like stepping into a painting.”

Long wooden tables set up beneath ancient trees offer plenty of space for enjoying drawn-out meals with family and friends. Trudie and Sting’s grown children bring more grandchildren along each time they visit. The couple try to spend an entire month at the estate in the summer. Last year, they celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary there, the tables decorated with blue hydrangea.

Nature as a source of inspiration for music

Just casting a quick glance over Sting’s tour schedule is enough to make anyone dizzy. His life on the road leads from Detroit to Cape Town to Abu Dhabi. But Sting also always makes time to spend at home in the gardens that he and Trudie planned together, places that literally ground them and serve as a source of inspiration and contemplation. There, they change into work clothes and climb onto a tractor, feeling the earth between their fingers and giving themselves over to the cycle of planting and harvesting, which follows its own schedule and refuses to be rushed by anything.

Sting’s love of nature is apparent in his songs, and he often sings about rivers, oceans, fields. In his book “Lyrics By Sting” he describes the view from the window of his home in England and how it inspired him to write “Fields of Gold,” one of his most famous songs. The house is surrounded by barley fields, he writes, and he is fascinated by the sight of a whole field of grain swaying in the summer wind: “Like waves on an ocean of gold.”

Trudie and Sting have turned the lawn in the garden of their English home into a labyrinth of grass. On a bed of stones, the initials T & S immortalizes the pair. It was a 300-year-old copper beech that clinched the decision to buy this particular property back then. Trudie called Sting after going to see the historic house and told him it was in bad shape, would need lots of work, part of the house wasn’t even habitable – but there was this absolutely gorgeous tree. “Get it,” he said.

Commitment to sustainable gardening and environmental protection: The Rainforest Fund

Trudie and Sting have been committed to sustainable gardening and environmental protection for many decades. In 1989, ­after meeting an indigenous leader in Brazil and listening to his concerns, they founded the Rainforest Fund. The organization meanwhile supports 300 projects in more than 20 countries, which work to preserve rainforests, ensure access to clean drinking water and conserve indigenous land. Trudie and Sting are both very active on a global level but they are also committed to organic farming methods on their own land.

Natural landscape design: wild, untamed variety

Arabella Lennox-Boyd designed Trudie and Sting’s gardens originally, both in England and in Tuscany, and each of them bears the leading landscape architect’s liberal signature. Lennox-Boyd, who lives in London but hails from Italy, is a big fan of symmetry, but she prefers the wild, untamed variety. Rather than looking as if they were laid out with a ruler, her gardens feature playful designs and are full of surprises. The lavender has been known to escape the borders of its bed and the wisteria is nearly impossible to contain because it is so abundant. The first thing Lennox-Boyd did at Il Palagio in Tuscany was to dig up the soil and install a water-recycling drainage system. Then she revived the olive grove, which contained hundreds of trees.

For the last five years, however, Trudie and Sting have been working with garden designers Julian and Isabel Bannerman at Lake House, creating gardens and garden buildings. More recently they have also been working on Il Palagio’s grounds, installing fountains and recreating the loggia garden.

Award-winning olive oil & Il Palagio wine

Sting is very clear about his role whe it comes to the land. “You can only be a caretaker,” he says. “Nothing is really yours. The land here belongs to the trees.” The olives these trees produce are cold-pressed on the premises. The result is an award-wining olive oil that is sold in the farm shop along with honey from the estate’s own bees, ­salamis, prosciutto, fruit and vegetables. And lots and lots of wine.

In 2002, Trudie and Sting ­replanted the wild, 15-hectare vineyard and established the Il Palagio label. In recent years, the pair have enjoyed the support of Riccardo Cotarella, the legendary Italian winemaker who also planted vines for Pope Francis at the traditional papal summer residence not far from Rome. Trudie and Sting produce around 120,000 bottles of Il Palagio wine every year: whites, reds, rosés and sparkling wines. They have also launched an amaro, a bittersweet herbal liqueur called Amante 1530. The wines, whose names won’t just resonate with hardcore Sting fans, include a “Message in a Bottle” Vermentino and a “When We Dance” Chianti.

Once a year, those very songs are part of a very special event at the estate: when the iconic artist performs privately for family, neighbors and friends.