Podere Capitignano consists of several buildings and surrounding olive groves, vineyards, fields, and woods, on a hilltop about 25 km north of Florence, in the upper Sieve River valley in northern Tuscany. Some of the buildings have ancient Roman and Medieval origins and one of the summits on the property may have been an Etruscan burial-ground. The main villa was probably a small convent or monastery in the Middle Ages, as there is an old well; within living memory it had been a farmhouse (Casa colonica). One of the buildings is probably of 18th-century origin and has been continuously occupied (for some years by the Tuscan landscape painter Ottone Rosai, 1895-1957).

But as of the late-1960s, most of the buildings were abandoned and uninhabited. In 1968 the property was bought as a retirement home by the remarkable Swiss-based American educator Mary Crist Fleming (1910-2009), founder and long-time Director of The American School in Switzerland (TASIS), above Lugano in Italian-speaking Ticino. Her daughter Lynn, recently graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University (NY), moved from Switzerland to Florence and spent a year of her life, 1968-9, restoring and developing the property, befriending and employing local craftsmen and seeking out local materials to restore the property and make it habitable. She sought out antique materials for furnishings and added modern amenities (a new hilltop pool, tennis court, modern plumbing).

Over the subsequent half-century, while living and working elsewhere (Italian Switzerland, New York City, Virginia, France, and French Switzerland), Lynn (who married scholar-writer Michael D. Aeschliman in 1974: see Wikipedia article on him) returned regularly to the property, where her mother lived, and systematically restored each of the out-buildings, making several of them into the elegant living quarters that they are today. For many years her mother rented out these buildings to tourists for the long summer season and also to American university groups from the University of Virginia and Boston University. Lynn and her husband ran these summer programs for about twenty years. She has also restored major buildings in the USA (New York City and Virginia), France, the UK, and Switzerland. Chairman of the Board at TASIS, she now lives in semi-retirement on the property, still employing the local Italian family who have worked for her since the beginning of her restoration work in 1968. The estate has been one of the major focal points and achievements of her working life.

The climate of Tuscany is mild and usually sunny from March through November and often over Christmas, with an early spring. Florence, treasury of many of the world's finest masterpieces and overflowing with fascinating shops, open markets, craftsmen's workshops, and many fine restaurants, is only a forty-minute drive away. Fiesole, the Etruscan hill-top town, is half-way into Florence and definitely worth a visit. It offers several restaurants, shops, a Cathedral, and a Roman amphitheatre where a varied program of music, theatre, and dance is performed during the summer. Further afield, Lucca, Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano, Volterra, Arezzo, Assisi, Ravenna, and Bologna are all within a 2 hours' drive. The nearest town of Borgo San Lorenzo is only a 10 minute drive and meets all shopping needs. Borgo has public tennis courts, a municipal swimming pool, and a convenient train and bus service to Florence. Bicycles can be rented in Borgo, as well as horses for country trekking 20 minutes away in Barberino.