Property Description

Spacious and Distinctive Four-bedroom Villa with Sea Views Showcased to Perfection on the Ionian Coast, between Catania and Siracusa

If it’s the sea that attracts you to life in Sicily, you may go crazy for this spacious detached villa, located midway between Catania and Siracusa on the island’s east coast. Almost every part of the luxurious neoclassical home has a view of the Ionian Sea, just 750m away and 100m downhill. The three-storey home is the product of a recent renovation, completed in 2018, but built to keep you grounded, showcasing natural materials from the region and designed to showcase that stunning natural panorama from both outside and indoors.

Overlooking the Baia del Gambero (or ‘Shrimp Bay’ – we’ll let you guess the local culinary speciality!), Villa Orazio is found on the upper edges of a quiet residential development in the municipality of Brucoli. It would be a wonderful place for a young family who want to make the move to Sicily, amply suited to year-round living and certainly big enough to accommodate multiple generations.

The upper floors are fully realised, while the semi-underground basement has a lovely spacious garage and another space which is waiting to be finished and could become a gym, formal dining room, playroom, workshop or even a guest flat. It’s surrounded by plenty of flat outdoor space, and a veranda and roof terrace adjoin the first and second floors respectively. Let’s take a more detailed look at this lovely villa with sea views, available to buy today.

The Property

The property is fully fenced and you can enter through a sturdy automatic gate or on foot through a drystone arch, made from local Modicana stone, a motif which will recur once you get inside. At first glance the villa makes a big impact, the Roman arches of the first floor veranda perfectly matching the decorative balustrades of the terrace and the slow gabled roof. Beautiful roses have been planted around the edges of the garden.

A short external staircase brings you to the front door, off the portico-style veranda. You enter straight into a huge kitchen-diner, a 40m2 space split in two by a line of stone arches, and leading to a rounded stairwell which has also had its masonry left on view. The kitchen is modern and very user-friendly, fitted with an electric oven, gas hobs, double sinks, extractor fans and plenty of storage and work surfaces.

On the southern side are two bedrooms, not enormous but with lovely sunny windows and certainly enough space to make both doubles or twins as you prefer, and a bathroom with a cubicle shower, heated towel rail and modern ceramics.

The north-eastern corner of the property, where it directly faces the sea and is not overlooked, has been fully glazed, giving a superb uninterrupted view of the bay below. The stairwell is also flooded with natural light and reveals some lovely views of its own.

Upstairs the floor plan is repeated, but with a living room instead of the kitchen-diner. So you find two more bedrooms of identical dimensions and the same style of bathroom with a subtly different decoration. Once again, the seaward corner of the house has been glazed from floor to ceiling, giving an even better view than the one a level beneath. The gently sloping roof has light woodwork which has been left exposed in a chalet style, complimenting the patches of bare stonework to give a look that’s natural but modern and will stand the test of time.

The open terrace is L-shaped and roomy, another highlight of the villa. With sea views from most of its 15m2 of space, it’s a fabulous spot in which to sunbathe or relax with friends.

Gas-powered radiators and modern air conditioning units have been fitted throughout the property. The windows are first rate, extra strong and with a thermal break. Water arrives through municipal pipes at a cost of just €240 a year, and a 25,000 litre cistern ensures you always have an ample reserve. Waste water drains into an Imhoff septic tank. The entire property is protected by an alarm system, and all the necessary paperwork is in perfect order – never to be taken for granted in this region.

Surroundings

Villa Orazio is right on the edge of the residential neighbourhood, with very little passing traffic. The nearby properties are mostly detached homes of a similar age, with nearly all of them occupied all year round.

The nearest beach can be reached in just three minutes by car, a beautiful sandy cove with pristine turquiose water. After all, you didn’t buy a villa with sea views just to admire the water from a distance!You are conveniently close to the motorway, although the noise does not reach the house. The nearest area for day-to-day shops and services is Brucoli, just five or six minutes down the coast. Beyond this is Augusta, a charming little town with a Medieval castle and a beautiful centre which stands on its own little island.

Sicily’s second city, Catania, is a 40 minute drive to the north, with all of the superstores, cultural attractions and infrastructure you would expect of a city that is home 300,000 people. If you’re bringing younger children you may be interested to know that it has some excellent international schools. It’s also the location of the nearest airport, in fact one of Italy’s busiest, which you can reach in just half an hour.

Heading south, instead, you come to the ancient coastal town of Siracusa, once home to the great mathematician Archimedes. It boasts a remarkably preserved Greek theatre with a full programme in the summer months, some excellent restaurants in the timeless little old town on the island of Ortigia.

Some of Sicily’s greatest beaches lie just a little further down the coast in the nature reserves of Cavagrande del Cassibile and the Oasi Faunistica di Vendicari. Modica, Ragusa and the rest of the historic Val di Noto can be reached in just over an hour.

Potential

If you wanted to move here with extended family, or just to have a guest flat it would be possible to split Villa Orazio into two separate apartments, one on each floor. The necessary plumbing and electrical connections to create a second kitchen on the top floor are already in place.

If you aren’t quite ready to move full-time to Sicily, the beautiful villa with sea views also has great potential as an investment property, if you want to buy it and let it out to long-term tenants. The vendor actually did something similar for several years, making the house available to the nearby military base of Sigonella in return for an annual income of a little over €20,000.