Clooney not selling Italian mansion

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Washington (ANI): Actor George Clooney has slammed reports that he is selling his popular Italian retreat on the shores of Lake Como, insisting that he loves the area. Clooney, who is one of the only 880 residents of the sleepy town of Laglio, recently revealed that he has made up his mind not to leave the place. "I'm so taken with where I live and how much I love that area... It's where I wrote Good Night And Good Luck and where I finished the script for (new movie) Leatherheads. It's a really peaceful place to go and write," Contactmusic quoted Clooney, as saying.

However, he asserted that he was disappointed when a local dignitary suggested that he turned his waterfront palace into a tourist attraction earlier this year. "The mayor of this little town came up with a sort of master plan to fill in this beautiful old boat dock that's next to my house and make it a park for viewing George Clooney's place," he said.

"The townspeople filled out a long petition from almost all of them to the mayor saying: Please don't do this' and I signed it with them. "I said, if you want to go forward with this and if it's my fault that it's happening, then I should leave.' I don't want their town being ruined. I don't want them to lose their fishing village," he added.