Villa Andrea – Trabia

• 9 Rooms

• 3 Bathroom

• 186 m²

• Ground floor

Villa Andrea – Beautifully Presented Sea-view Villa near Palermo with Four Bedrooms, Panoramic Terraces, Garden and a 100m2 Lower Floor to Develop

Villa Andrea is a stylish, large and beautifully presented family home on a hillside above Trabia on Sicily's north coast. Midway between Palermo, the island's thrilling capital, and the legendary beach town of Cefalù, it's a scenic and convenient base from which to explore the whole of the north coast. From its position 340 metres above sea level it has a completely uninterrupted view facing northeast across the Gulf of Termini Imerese. On a clear day you can even see the distant volcanic Aeolian Islands silhouetted against the horizon.

Inside you have more than 200m2 of comfortable living space on two floors, with four bedrooms and three bathrooms, and an unconverted lower ground floor of at least 100m2 below. Outside, two large front terraces and a wide rear terrace with a barbecue and pizza oven wrap around the house. A lovely garden on the level below leaves room for a pool.

What strikes us most is how private it feels. You arrive through an automatic gate, with room for three cars inside. The handful of neighbouring villas are all well kept, so the setting is quiet and cared for. The access road is in excellent condition, and this mix of seclusion and easy access makes it such an appealing sea-view villa near Palermo.

Renovated in the early 2000s and still in very good condition, this is a well-built home with new windows and shutters throughout. You can live in it from the day you complete the purchase. It is sold substantially furnished; the few personal belongings going with the owners are easy to pick out in the virtual tour. Whether you want a permanent home in the sun or a second home for long stretches of the year, you can settle in without doing any work first.

The Property

Passing through the gate onto the neat driveway, the first thing that catches the eye is how warm and welcoming the villa looks. The walls are finished in smooth plaster, with masonry trim setting off the dark wooden windows and shutters. It is a modern house, but a handsome one. A terracotta patio runs right round the building, and a separate pedestrian entrance saves you opening the gate when you come home on foot.

Inside, the living room is the heart of the ground floor, arranged around a fabulous stone fireplace with the staircase wrapping round it. We love the way this works: with the fireplace at the very centre of the plan, its warmth spreads through the whole house on a winter's day. The dining room adjoins, and a large wooden pocket door slides back into the wall to open up the separate kitchen, built entirely in masonry in the traditional Sicilian way.

Also on this level, the main bedroom opens directly onto a terrace, and a smaller second bedroom would suit a child, a guest or a home office. The bathroom here houses the washing machine too. Throughout the house the floors are porcelain tiles and the decoration is simple and elegant, with staircase details picked out in local tile. One of the bathrooms nods to the seaside with a blue and white colour scheme.

Upstairs you will find two more bedrooms. The large master has a walk-in wardrobe and its own bathroom, while the second shares the landing with the family bathroom. Both bedrooms have balconies with beautiful sea views, and a canvas awning on a wooden frame shades the sea-view balcony in the heat of the day.

Outside, the wraparound terrace widens at the back into a very large space under a handsome hardwood canopy. Here the outdoor kitchen is already fitted with a barbecue, a pizza oven and a sink, and you have room for a covered dining area to match. At the front, the two panoramic terraces mentioned earlier give this sea-view villa near Palermo its widest view. A flight of steps leads down to the lower garden, full of plants and greenery. From inside the house a door gives direct access to the lower ground floor described under Potential below.

The services are all in place: independent gas central heating, mains electricity, municipal water with a storage tank as an emergency reserve, and an authorised Imhoff septic tank. The house is pre-wired for air conditioning, though the units have not been installed. The elevated position, natural ventilation and surrounding shade keep it comfortable in summer even without them. We have tested the mobile signal inside ourselves and measured download speeds above 200 Mbps, so you will have no trouble working remotely from here.

Surroundings

Villa Andrea is found in Contrada Sperone, a quiet district of detached villas close to the Golden Hill 4 residence, less than four kilometres inland from the coast. Coming from Palermo along the coastal state road, you turn off into Contrada Sperone and reach the gate in about nine minutes. The slope faces northeast, so the house gets the morning sun and a fresh breeze off the sea while staying warm and sunny all year round.

The sea is a drive of seven or eight minutes away. The centre of Trabia, a small town of around ten thousand people with shops, supermarkets, pharmacies, banks and everyday services, is ten minutes away. Trabia also has a railway station on the coastal line, with direct trains to the centre of Palermo and to Cefalù.

The small city of Bagheria, famous for its eccentric Baroque villas, is twenty minutes to the west, on the road towards Palermo. Cefalù is the star attraction heading east with its medieval old town, Norman cathedral and long sandy beach. History buffs will love the castle at Caccamo, one of the best preserved in Sicily, a short drive up into the hills.

Palermo's Falcone Borsellino airport is under an hour away, and both Trapani and Catania airports are reachable in two, giving you a wide choice of flights from northern Europe. Our team knows this area well and has sold other properties here to overseas buyers – we think this is an ideal neighbourhood for a sea-view villa near Palermo.

Potential

With the house itself ready to live in, the potential lies in the lower ground floor and the garden. The lower level offers at least 100m2 which currently need complete renovation. Subject to planning and technical checks, you could use it to extend the living space, add bedrooms or guest quarters, or house a gym, hobby room, cellar or storage. It could equally become a self-contained apartment for relatives. A basic fit-out as a workshop or store might cost from around €20,000, while a full conversion with a bathroom and kitchen would be more like €60,000 to €90,000, depending on finishes. We can put you in touch with trustworthy surveyors and architects to confirm what the regulations allow before you commit.

The garden below the house is the natural place for a pool. Because the ground falls away in levels, a raised or semi-raised pool may be simpler and cheaper to build than one fully dug into the slope. Expect to spend from around €20,000 for a raised pool, subject to the necessary permissions.

All of this is the kind of work our project management service takes on. We are the only agency in Sicily to offer it across all our properties. It means you can have the lower floor converted or the pool built without being on site.

Villa Andrea would make a fabulous permanent home. Trabia is also small enough to qualify for the most generous tax incentives offered to people who transfer their residency to southern Italy. If you decide to make the move, our Welcome to Sicily relocation management service takes the bureaucracy off your hands, from utilities to residency paperwork. Your first months of life on the island can then be spent settling in and exploring, not queuing at counters.