A painting of a man in a black coat and tie standing in front of a fireplace

Baron Antonio Arbela governs the woodlands, fertile farmlands and trading posts of Tuscola County from his Italianate stone estate Tuscola Hall. His aristocratic family originated in Tuscany where ancestors supplied marble, olives, wine and other fine goods to several prominent Roman Catholic papal families and the grand Duchy of Modena court before economic factors and legal scandals forced relocation to America in the early 1800s. Leveraging remaining family coins, patents of nobility and supported by Catholic clerical ties in Quebec, Antonio’s father secured prime lands across Michigan’s Saginaw frontier then sent for a new young bride among ambitious noble spinster options available from struggling aristocratic lines in Naples to start a new life abroad. This blended lineage birthright fell to only son Antonino (later anglicized to Anthony) who married the daughter of German nobility from Lübeck helping colonize regions south toward Bay City. Now entering his mid 60s with his own heir apparent lined up, Baron Arbela focuses on restoring harvest festivals, equestrian contests and elaborate Catholic sanctuary decorations recalling fondly Tuscany’s pageantry and cultural amenities otherwise sorely lacking in Michigan’s remote rural townships populated predominantly by Protestant English and Reformed German pioneers suspicious of uppity flamboyant outsiders occupying Tuscola’s most prime, elevated acreage.