In 1963, renovation works began on the top floor of a 17th-century Venetian palazzo that would see it transformed into a sprawling residential and office space for a lawyer named Luigi Scatturin. The result—a modernist masterpiece whose many attractive attributes include pearwood walls, a set of narrow, two-tone stairs that stack upward like building blocks, and bespoke furniture—took three years to complete. It was only following Scatturin’s death more than 50 years later, when Casa Scatturin was placed on the market, that its spectacular interior could be (briefly) appreciated by those beyond its owner and his immediate circle.

Since then, the property has been heralded as an iconic piece in the portfolio of its creator, Carlo Scarpa. A Venetian architect who maintained a fierce...