Property Description

Appartamento Valentino – Large Sea-view Apartment near Palermo, with Three Bedrooms, Balcony and Terrace

With sea-view property in the region of Palermo, Sicily’s largest and most popular city, always in high demand, a property as big as this huge three-bedroom apartment is a rare discovery. With the added advantage of a location away from the bustle of the island’s capital, in a small fishing village which remains completely undiscovered by mass tourism and bursts with its essential Sicilian character, Appartamento Valentino is a really interesting proposition.

On the third floor of a 1980s apartment block in the little community of Porticello, the bright and airy family home is just two hundred metres from the adorable marina, with its fish market, fantastic restaurants and mooring opportunities for small motorboats and yachts. You can’t mistake the warm sea air that’s carried in through the balconies and windows of this triple-exposition property.

Despite being higher up than the neighbouring buildings, there is no accessibility compromise needed – the apartment is served by an elevator – a rare discovery in traditional Porticello. This allows you to enjoy the panoramic views of mountains and sea offered by the full-length balcony to the front and the covered terrace to the rear.

If you are planning to move full-time to Sicily, the expansive space and convenient proximity to the amenities of Palermo will make this a great base and a constantly enticing option for guests. Buyers who are searching for a holiday home, on the other hand, will love the proximity to the city’s airport, the security of a location in a homely residential condominium and of course the enticing price tag.

The vendor of this lovely sea-view apartment near Palermo has set the asking price without furniture, but they will consider offers for any or all of its contents. So if you want the quickest and easiest possible solution, you can save yourself the hassle of hunting for a new kitchen or manhandling a dining table up to the third floor.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s on offer…

The Property

Facing north-east on the quiet but central Via Crispi, the condominium housing Appartamento Valentino is a six-storey building a little less than forty years old. Both of these features make is slightly unusual compared to its immediate neighbours, but the advantages continue inside. Besides that invaluable elevator, the floor plan is a huge 174m2, meaning you have all the spatial advantages of a house, with a fraction of the maintenance and logistical hassles.

The front door of this flat leads you into an ample hallway. Close by is a storeroom, but if you preferred to add a closet directly next to the entrance for shoes and coats, space would be no issue at all. You’l immediately be impressed by the polished marble floors, which continue throughout.

Directly ahead of you is the huge l-shaped living room, currently configured as an elongated lounge area and a dining room around the corner. Light floods into the room through twin French windows, which open onto a balcony that runs the entire width of the building. Although this faces onto Via Crispi, you immediately notice that you are above the height of the homes opposite, and so you can enjoy a lovely panorama over the roofs of Porticello that also takes in the rocky silhouette of Capo Zafferano, and the archaeological park on its hillside. The north-westerly aspect makes this an ideal spot from which to enjoy the region’s famous sunsets.

There are three bedrooms in the property, although one is currently being used as a second living room. Vast and with connecting access onto the same fantastic balcony, however, this would make a perfect master bedroom. With almost 30m2 of space to play with one could even add an en-suite bathroom or walk-in closet.

The current master bedroom is a little smaller but still over 20m2. It is lit by a window which faces south-west. A smaller guest room also looks this way; it is currently a single but could be a small double or twin if the huge quadruple-fronted wardrobe were swapped for something smaller. Really, the perfect solution would be to add bunk beds – do you have grandchildren who might be visiting? Or are you tempted by the prospect of renting the home to tourists while you are not using it yourself? In either case this would be an ideal furniture choice.

There are currently two bathrooms, although one is only a WC. The other is long and reasonably wide, with a bathtub. Both are fully tiled on the floor and walls.

Lastly, a well-sized family kitchen has more than enough room for a breakfast table or island. It leads into a very big utility room and also out onto the covered terrace. The cupboards and fitted units down one side, including double sink and gas hob, are in good condition and might be a wise addition to the deal to save time and effort after completion.

The terrace is about 8m2 and faces south west. This makes it sunny all through morning and much of the afternoon – the perfect spot to enjoy an al fresco breakfast or lunch. Again, you are higher up than your neighbours, and so the fabulous view takes in the entire Gulf of Termini Imerese, with the mountainous outcrops that define the island’s beautiful north coast receding into the distance as fas as the eye can see.

A boiler provides hot water, although there is currently no heating system for the property. It draws electricity and water from the reliable municipal mains, and there is strong cellphone reception – on our visit we recorded speeds of over 50MB on a 5G mobile network. If you are planning to work from home you will be pleased to know that the town is also wired for fibre-optic broadband.

Surroundings

Let’s explore the area around this sea-view apartment near Palermo. Porticello is perfectly positioned on the north coast of Sicily, just a short journey from Palermo, but sheltered from the noise and intensity of Italy’s fifth-largest city by a stretch of green belt and the hills of the Capo Zafferano peninsula. This area originally grew up as a popular summer spot for the wealthiest families in the city to escape the humidity in July and August, though now the towns and villages along the rugged rocky coastline have their own distinct characters and traditions.

The area of Santa Flavia, the nearest small town, is well known to us as one branch of our family has called it home for many years. Indeed, we have an office in Porticello itself, in a street parallel to this one. So you couldn’t possibly pick a spot in Sicily where you’d have a better set of local guides and welcoming new friends!

Porticello village has the shops you’d need for daily life, and some lovely restaurants around the harbour. There’s a supermarket at the end of the road, and if you need anything from a bigger city then Bagheria is just up the road, a ten minute drive from your front door. The 55,000 residents of the busy market town are very proud of its spectacular Baroque villas and excellent culinary tradition, highlighted by not one but two Michelin-starred restaurants.

The hills outside the town are beautiful, home to some fascinating nature and magnificent views, as well as to the enthralling Solunto archaeological park.

The nearest train station is in Santa Flavia, reachable on foot in a quarter of an hour. This will take you to the centre of Palermo in about 20 minutes. The airport is a 40 minute drive.

Potential

The large sea-view apartment near Palermo is absolutely ready to be moved into and enjoyed without having to invest a cent, but as it has not really been modified since its construction, there is a lot of potential that could be unlocked with some judicious investment.

One obvious place to start would be the windows, which are currently in some rather old metal and only singly glazed. Modern replacements with thermal break would cost somewhere in the region of €7000 but could deliver an immediate return in the form of better insulation and lower bills.

The electrical wiring is original and while not appearing immediately unsafe, would need to be renewed in order to comply with current legislation. Depending on the configuration you need this could be realised on a budget of between €8,000 – 15,000.

Here’s a very different kind of suggestion, but one which we feel could have a huge positive impact for relatively little outlay: On the sea-side of the building, the view from the terrace is rather restricted by the large water tanks on the roof of the opposite property. There’s no guarantee, but knowing the way things work in Sicily we think a small incentive might persuade the owners of that building to move the tanks to a spot where they wouldn’t be blocking your view. It wouldn’t change anything for them but would really maximise what would become an even nicer spot for soaking up the sun and eating in the fresh air.

There is neither heating nor air conditioning, and both of these issues could be solved with two-way heat pumps. Alternatively, given the size of the large open spaces you might feel it worthwhile investing in radiators – which will obviously require a larger initial outlay. Of course, much depends on how you plan to use Appartamento Valentino – it’s really only in the short Sicilian winter from January to March that central heating is any kind of an issue. You would definitely be well advised to install air conditioning, however.

The bathrooms are functional but it would be nice to have at least the option to shower in the smaller of the two. If you plan to use the second living room as a master bedroom then an en-suite would be perfectly possible to add, given the fact that this space shares a wall with the existing bathroom and so the necessary pipes will already be in the right part of the building. However, we are obviously now firmly into the territory of discretionary spending.

Finally, the most ambitious and dramatic option for renovation work would be to split the space completely in two. 80m2 would still be a very reasonable size for a holiday apartment, and you would have the option to rent out one or both, or to resell one to finance the work on the other. If you would like to find out more about the realities of taking on a project like this in Sicily, please do talk to our friendly and multilingual team today. We have extensive experience in the field of project management, and have helped numerous satisfied clients over the years on all levels from initial consultancy to full-scale project management.