Brunello Cucinelli was born in an old stone farmhouse outside Castel Rigone, Umbria, Italy. It didn’t have electricity or running water and, as it was shared among 13members of the extended Cucinelli family, could feel a bit crowded.

Still, “it’s a house that is beautiful to me,” says Cucinelli, 68, who has fond memories of playing with his siblings and cousins in the kitchen’s cavernous fireplace, and of slipping downstairs to the cow stables before school to steal milk directly from the source.