Property Description

Huge, Elegant City Centre Palermo Apartment for Sale, with Terrace, Park Views and Beautiful Frescoes

Housed in a beautiful neoclassical building which dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century, Appartamento Nino is a spacious and fabulously located split level apartment with three bedrooms and two spacious reception rooms.

The fabulously decorated luxury apartment, on the second floor of the palazzo in the trendy Libertà district of Palermo, overlooks the gardens of Villa Fillipina. The courtyard-style grounds of this eighteenth century manor house now play host to a regularly rotating array of community events, including antiques markets, concerts, food festivals and an outdoor cinema.

Offering a huge 171m2 of indoor space, plus twin balconies and a terrace to the rear, the apartment comes complete with some superb decoration and fittings, including fabulous majolica-patterned floors created by local artisans, and high, vaulted ceilings decorated with beautiful frescoes.

Bright and airy thanks to its double exposition, and within a couple of minutes walk of the main cultural and shopping hubs of the city centre, this large Palermo apartment for sale is an exciting opportunity to buy real estate – and a sizeable property at that – in the heart of one of the continent’s fastest-evolving cities.

The Property

The palazzo building in which you will find Appartamento Nino has been completely renovated in the recent past, and the facades and common areas are perfect. A beautiful original front door leads into a small but impressive atrium, and a grey marble staircase invites you to explore upwards. If you prefer to reach the second floor in comfort, this wraps around a practical elevator.

The apartment itself opens into a large entrance hall, which connects to a short corridor on the left. An open staircase climbs up at the end of this passageway, which has been finished with a marble-tiled floor and a floral print wallpaper.

To your right is a huge living room, originally two rooms which have been connected to make a single space of over 40m2. Twin French windows lead to a pair of balconies which overlook the tree-lined boulevard below. The noise of the city traffic is kept to a minimum by what appears from here to be a complete green carpet spanning the road. The floors are laid with those majolica tiles we mentioned above, and the decorated, 4.20m high ceilings are perfect – a touch of elegant Sicilian culture to win the heart of any visitor.

Moving towards the rear of the apartment, you will pass a small guest bedroom, currently used as a study but with full-length wardrobes to offer extra storage. Next is the fully-fitted kitchen, a little compact for a property of this size, but with ample cupboard space and work surfaces. In these spaces and the corridor the ceilings are lower, although still over 2.60m. This is because the old servants’ quarters, now a single double bedroom, are located above them.

At the rear the ceilings rise again, with a second living room opening onto the sunny, north-east facing terrace. Measuring 6m2, this isn’t quite big enough to host a full dinner party but would make a perfect spot to enjoy a sunny breakfast, especially on a Sunday in summer when the gentle noises of live music float up from the gardens below.

Next to this is a bathroom with a blue and white tile and a walk-in shower. Beyond you come to the master bedroom, illuminated by a full-length window onto a Juliet balcony which faces in the same direction as the terrace. The space appears a little smaller than it might thanks to a floral wallpaper, but measures a generous 3.6×4.6metres and has more than enough room for all of your bedroom furniture. Off this is a small dressing room, which in turn leads directly into the bathroom.

Up the little internal staircase is the third bedroom, a mezzanine floor where the ceiling height drops to 190cm. As long as you or your guests are not extremely tall this will still be comfortable to walk around in. The large bedroom also features an en-suite bathroom with a shower.

Connected to the municipal supplies for electricity, water and sewage, Appartamento Nino is heated by radiators distributed throughout, filled from a designated boiler. The winters are short in Palermo, but you will nevertheless be glad of this in February and March. This heat is retained behind modern double-glazed windows, all in excellent condition. In the summer months you will appreciate the air conditioning unit in the rear living room.

In good condition overall, Appartamento Nino is a Palermo apartment for sale that’s ready for you to make it a year-round home from the day you sign the purchase deed.

Surroundings

Palermo, Sicily’s most important city and the fifth-most populous in the whole of Italy, has a complex and fascinating history stretching back thousands of years. The largest city in Western Europe for a period around the eleventh and twelfth centuries, this port dominated the culture and commerce of the Mediterranean.

Home at various points in its history to Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, Aragonese, Savoys, Bourbons and finally Italians, it was in many ways the first multicultural city. Traces of this delicate tapestry can be found in its distinctive mix of architectural styles, local dialect, traditional customs, religion, the trio of sprawling souk-like street markets which creep across the Old Town, and the much-loved street food in which the residents take just pride.

Appartamento Nino is just a five minute walk from the iconic Teatro Massimo, the acoustically-perfect opera house which is the main symbol of the city, and the bustling piazza outside it, ground zero for so much of Palermo’s cultural life. The pedestrianised via Maqueda, running past the theatre, is lined with bars and restaurants and takes you to the main Centrale station less than a kilometre away.

Turning in the other direction, the popular via Maqueda becomes the sophisticated via Libertà, home to boutique shopping giants like Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren and Gucci.

Fashionable bars and restaurants pack the whole city, and whether your perfect night out is a quiet cocktail or a lively piazza you will find something tailor-made for you and your friends. The city has a lively ex-pat social scene with regular meetings for groups of all ages and backgrounds.

If you want to travel further afield, you can take a train to Catania, Messina or Agrigento, or reach any of the island’s famous landmarks and attractions within a few hours’ travel by car. Falcone -Borsellino international airport (named after the city’s favourite sons, two crusading judges who lost their life in the tragic but ultimately vindicated anti-mafia struggle of the twentieth century) is just a half hour away from your front door.

Potential

Appartamento Nino’s location, beautiful building, size and the frescoed ceilings fully deserve a new owner who is prepared to make it a full time residence. The good news is that the tax incentives for making Sicily your permanent base have never been more attractive – take a look at our full guide to tax breaks for new residents and see how much you could save in this fashion.

There is a little work to be done in order to really maximise the property’s beauty and value. If you’re investing this kind of sum on a property you will definitely want to refresh the bathrooms and some of the older papered walls.

Buyers who want to create a third bathroom could make use of the study opposite the main entrance, while you might feel that an extra bedroom would be a better use of the rear reception room, given the wealth of floor space on offer in the statement living room at the front of the property.

You will certainly want to retain the original tiled floors from this period should be preserved, and the frescoes in the living room will make a beautiful impression for years to come. The characterful and prestigious Palermo apartment for sale will make the right buyer very happy for just as long.