MaryAnn,
I think you are confusing me with Judy who lives in England. I and my wife live in Calgary, Canada so we are even further from Italy than you are. Our house is in Carrufo which used to be part of Ofena up until the 1950's when it was transferred to Villa Santa Lucia. It's a 20 minute walk down the mountain for me to go to the bar in Ofena. Actually we are lucky in that there are a lot of cheap flights to England and then with Easyjet it is an inexpensive 2 hours further to Rome. Calgary-Rome return is usually less than $1000 each.
Have you checked to see if you are eligible for Italian citizenship? If you had your dual citizenship you are home free! As long as your parents hadn't become American citizens before you were born then I think you are already an Italian citizen. Otherwise you have to apply for residency.
We've been going for 3 years now and there are a number of Canadians and Americans living in our village and they all say winter drags for them. Maybe you should try renting for a few months to get the "feel" of living there before fully commiting. There are other problems for us old folks, such as health insurance. We usually buy it for 30 or 60 days and it's not to bad but I haven't checked into the cost for full time coverage.
We certainly enjoy the lifestyle in Italy and wether we move to Italy full time or just spend a number of months there each year we have no intention of giving up our house there.
Barry