THE Italian village that was home to Freya Stark, the prominent explorer and travel writer, has admitted defeat in its quest to keep her last home open to the public.

Her 19th-century villa in Asolo, in the foothills of the Dolomites, has been sold to developers at auction for €2.7 million (£1.9 million). The property, which had been kept as a memorial to Stark since her death in 1993, was put on the market by the local council, which could no longer afford its upkeep.

Daniele Ferrazza, the Mayor of Asolo, had hoped that the villa would be acquired by a private foundation, with funding by Stark’s British admirers. In the event, the Carron construction group, an Italian company, offered almost €1 million above the reserve price at auction. Stark — nurse, photographer and anti-Fascist campaigner as well as traveller and writer — made her name by reaching parts of the Middle East where few European men, and no women, had set foot.

Her books include her autobiography, Traveller’s Prelude: The Southern Gates of Arabia, and The Valleys of the Assassins. Stark produced highly personal books describing the history, culture and everyday life of the places she visited, most notably the Middle East.

At a time when few women travelled without an escort, even in relatively hospitable areas of the world, Stark undertook solo treks to remote areas of Turkey and Arabia.

A nurse in the First World War, she was rumoured to have had a fling with Lawrence of Arabia and, in the Second World War, she worked for British Intelligence in Aden, Baghdad and Cairo, where she founded the anti-Nazi Brotherhood of Freedom. She later visited Asia, notably Afghanistan and Nepal. Well into her eighties — and against her doctor’s advice — she trekked into the Himalayas.

Her fighting spirit is encapsulated in an episode that Asolo residents are fond of telling visitors. When burglars broke into the villa in the mid-1980s she took out her revolver and sent them packing with the words: “My dear chaps, I have six shots in the chamber and an unerring aim. It’s up to you.”

Asolo had been Stark’s home since the 1960s. Previous residents of Asolo included Robert Browning and Ernest Hemingway. She died at the age of 100.