It was originally a railway station, then a manor house, after which it was abandoned for decades. Today it is a cultural centre. These are the four lives lived by Casa Spadaccino, a historic building a stone’s throw from the sea, at su Loi, a locality in the territory of Capoterra. It was constructed in 1873 by the French mining company of Petin et Gaudet, which held a concession in the inland mountains. It was located at the end of the ‘road of the Genoese’, an ancient coal merchants’ road on which a railway was installed. The building served as the terminus station for convoys loaded with iron extracted from the mine. In the 1930s, it became the heart of a thriving farm, surrounded by vineyards, vegetable gardens and orchards. The area was transformed into a large, colourful garden, where cutting-edge cultivation techniques were applied, so much so that it earned itself the nickname of su spantu, ‘the wonder’, which still identifies a small village not far from su Loi.