Property Description

An Enchanting Sea-view Terrace Steals the Show in this Affordable Country House to Renovate in Sicily’s Northern Hills

A project property with superb grounds, Plot con Casa is a 4,000m2 estate a the west-facing hillside in the municipality of Trabia. It’s only two kilometres inland, and a number of fantastic beaches are right around the corner.

The house is still to be completed, with plastering both inside and out, flooring and more on the agenda. However, as you can see from our virtual tour, the olive-filled grounds are shady and inviting, the sea-view terrace is a gem and, at this asking price, the chance to mould a country cottage to your own personal tastes will be too much to resist.

Offering privacy, a bit of advanture and a chance to reconnect with nature, this is a great value house to renovate in Sicily’s serene countryside.

The Property

There is one room on each of the two floors. The upper floor, officially at ground level wince the lower is partially underground, is a bedroom, with a little en-suite that currently contains a WC and a sink. It is probably too small to hold a shower but could become a wet room with a shower head, or you might want to enlarge it a bit.

There is no window here, other than a little grille above the door, but fitting French windows would be a simple workaround. The room is a little over 16m2, plus the bathroom, although the ceiling height of over four metres helps stop it feeling cramped.

The lower level has a single room of 33m2. The ceiling is a little lower here, at just over three metres, but there is plenty of space to use as a kitchen-living room with a dining table too. Directly outside the front door is a shady area of garden under some trees so again, you could add large windows without having to deal with excessive heat.

From the large covered terrace, which has been raised above the level of the surrounding trees, the sea view is really tremendous, with the distinctive double peak of Capo Zafferano and Monte Catalfano clearly in view at the western end of the Gulf of Termini Imerese. A permanent canopy has been built on a scaffold, and this affords some invaluable shade in the long sunny summers. It’s a perfect spot from which to enjoy the region’s famous sunsets.

The garden covers about an acre, with olive trees the most diffuse flora. In total there are about forty of these, some of which will be centuries old. There is also a variety of typical fruit trees including figs and citruses. Everything is entirely enclosed by a fence.

The villa is connected to the municipal water and electricity networks. A large cistern in the grounds will guarantee your water never runs out, even in periods of low supply.

Surroundings

The plot is found on a quiet paved lane, less than two hundred metres off the SP6 provincial road. This runs from Trabia at sea level to the little village of Ventimiglia di Sicilia in the hills of the Sicilian interior. It’s a scenic drive upwards past the Rosamarina Lake, but you will probably use it most for travelling the seven kilometres downhill to the town of Trabia and the motorway which runs from Palermo to Messina.

This is a very rural area, with houses and farms at regular intervals but no towns or even villages before you reach the coast.  With less than ten minutes’ drive to the nearest beach and supermarket, however, you’ll love the balance of countryside and convenience. You money will certainly go much further here than it would five minutes down the road.

The nearest small town is Termini Imerese, six kilometres to the east. Bagheria is a more sizeable city only 15km in the other direction, on the road that then brings you into Palermo. Sicily’s thrilling capital city is home to some world class food, music and shopping as well as to some fascinating traditional neighbourhoods filled with souk-like outdoor markets, irresistible street food and all kinds of local arts and crafts.

Potential

The work you will need to do in order to make the house habitable begins with the amenities. Both the electrical and plumbing systems will need to be installed, and of course as you do this you will need to fit both a bathroom and a kitchen.

Then you will have to put windows in. We would suggest the bigger the better, giving you every opportunity to get natural light into the home. Once this is done then you will be able to plaster the interiors and do what you would like with the flooring. You will need to at least clear a path down from the road to the building, perhaps laying a driveway.

In total we would estimate about €50,000 above the purchase price to be a reasonable budget to make the space comfortable and looking good.

Beyond that there is obviously potential to add a lot of optionals. Maybe a couple of air conditioners would help keep it completely comfortable if you’re planning to use it as a summer getaway, or perhaps you might think about a pellet stove for the winter. If you fit one on the ground floor the heat could be carried up to the bedroom by a flue. We would lay a patio outside, and many of our favourite country houses in Sicily have outdoor kitchens. You might want to consider a pool – a regular one can set you back about €25,000, but to keep costs down there are some great quality above-ground options on the market.

The good news is that structurally, Plot con Casa is absolutely fine. There is no need to demolish it, just fix the things mentioned above.

Whatever you have in mind for this charming plot, we would be delighted to offer any assistance we can. It’s a daunting prospect to take on a house to renovate in Sicily, but we have many years’ experience as project managers, and would love to be your eyes and ears on the ground, and help you navigate the Sicilian system with transparency, careful budget control and realistic timekeeping. Growing numbers of our clients have followed up purchases completed through our real estate arm with restoration or construction work under our supervision.