Property Description

Huge Five-bedroom Sicilian Villa with Sea Views; Fabulous Countryside Setting on Slopes of Monte San Calogero near Termini Imerese

A huge detached Sicilian villa with sea views, found in a beautiful rural location, Casa Cangemi offers five bedrooms and 320m2 of indoor space plus gardens and terraces. Whether you want to buy property in Sicily as a permanent lifestyle change or for large and loud family holidays, if you have dreams of escaping the city for a spot that is as scenic as it is quiet, this is the property for you.

Situated just two and a half kilometres inland, Cangemi offers views of the sea from the veranda, master bedroom window and the upstairs terrace. The nearby town of Termini Imerese is an important staging post on the main road Palermo to Messina that follows Sicily’s Tyrrhenian coast, but in the shade of Monte San Calogero and a beautiful nature reserve, you couldn’t feel more immersed in bucolic Sicilian life.

The Property

The entrance, at the top of a short flight of steps up to the elevated ground floor, is directly into a big living room with a fireplace and chimney in the corner. A spiral staircase takes you up to the first floor and down to the semi-underground basement and garage.

A wide passage leads to the large kitchen diner, whose halves are separated by breakfast bar. Wide openings and decorative archways rather than doors in this part of the home give it a stylish, modernist feel.

Two small bedrooms are really singles, although you could just about squeeze double beds in at the expense of other furniture. One would be perfect as a home office if you want to work remotely. At the front of the building is the master bedroom, with French windows onto a narrow balcony that has a sea view to the north-west. A family bathroom contains a shower cubicle.

Two verandas connect the indoor and outdoor spaces. A little porch at front looks west towards the mountains that surround Palermo, and the beautiful Lago Rosamarina nearby at Caccamo. A much larger one, most of the length and width of the east-facing side of the home, is around the back, offering a garden view ahead and a lateral sea view to the north.

The first floor ceilings slope gently down from the gabled roof. Here you will find one huge bedroom and one which is merely large. The floors up here have an unusual blue tile, and the small stairwell means that this space feels refreshingly separate from the downstairs area. A large bathroom contains a tub, and a small roof terrace gives you the best view of the turquoise sea in the middle distance.

The basement, which seems to be a ground floor from the lower front side of the property, is unfinished but with great potential. A very long narrow garage would comfortably house three cars, and the other side of that wall is a vast 60m2 open space. Although it will need to be finished, there is amazing light coming through the high windows on two sides. It has something of the feel of a trendy loft or art studio space, and could be a fantastic home gym, games room, art studio or even a guest apartment. There is certainly the space.

The upper floors have radiators, filled with water from the civic main, and heated by a boiler. A 5,000l water tank guarantees you a significant reserve in the event of any problems with supply, although the buyer should note that this some of this infrastructure and maintenance is ishared with neighbouring homes, with a condominium fee of €20 per month.

Outdoor spaces include a wide driveway and a garden which completely encircles the home. A lawn space allows for kids to play in safety at the back of the house, but most of it has been paved for easy of maintenance. A fixed shelter with sturdy tile roof is great for entertaining or just getting some shade on sunny days.

Surroundings

At 380m above sea level, Casa Cangemi is found just off the main road from Caccamo to Termini, on the lower slopes of Monte San Calogero, which will rise steeply up to a peak of 1326m just over three kilometres to the east. In this perfectly tranquil area the nearest shops are 10 minutes downhill in Termini Imerese, and the only traffic you will encounter is flocks of sheep being shepherded down the neighbouring lanes from one meadow to the next.

There is one immediate neighbour, uphill, and another house is being built next door, but this is a full 50m away from your building and on lower ground, so won’t negatively impact your sea view.

The neighbouring mountain is so much a symbol of the town of Termini Imerese that it even appears on the municipal crest. A constant presence on the landscape, the rocky peak is named after a tenth century hermit (Kalògheros) who took to its peak to live in devout solitude. The nature reserve offers an extraordinary variety of habitats, from verdant Mediterranean scrublands to open prairie, and even gorges carved by waterways. This guarantees amazing biodiversity, even at the steepest cliffs where the golden eagle, buzzard and peregrine falcon all nest – ornithologists will adore their fascinating neighbours.

If you’re more foodie than an outdoorsy type, you won’t want to miss the town’s pizza festival in December, where a foccacia-style local variant on the dish called the favazza takes over the centre of Termini Imerese. Or drive 30 minutes to Bagheria, where you’ll find not one but two Michelin-starred restaurants. Just 45 minutes brings you to the heart of the great Sicilian capital, Palermo, and an hour will take you as far as its recently renovated international airport.

Finally, of course, if you’re buying a Sicilian villa with sea views you’ll want to know how to enjoy the water! The nearest beaches are at Campofelice and Trabia, only about 20 minutes away, and you can reach the golden sandy perfection of the Norman fishing village Cefalù in about half an hour.

Potential

To make the most of the space available in Casa Cangemi, you will obviously want to finish that huge basement. Then the facade could use a replaster, with a few superficial cracks and some damp patches to fix. Staying outdoors, the paving could use being redone or at least neatened.

The current windows are metal but only single glazed. You could certainly cut your heating bills by upgrading those. If you plan on making Sicily your tax base, you may be able to benefit from subsidies for eco-friendly windows, in the form of tax credits through the Italian bonus system. Finally, the boiler that powers the property’s radiators needs to be replaced.

Beyond this, everything would be discretionary. You might feel that the bathrooms could be modernised, and perhaps the two smaller bedrooms might be more efficiently used if they were combined? The fixed canopy outside would have the potential to become a lovely outdoor kitchen. But these would only be by way of putting the finishing touches on what is already a very promising Sicilian villa with sea views to savour.