Property Description

 Sea-view Sicilian Property to Renovate near Capo d’Orlando, with Incredible Panoramas from Balconies and Terrace; just Five Minutes from the Beach

On a steep hillside looking down on the dramatic coastline of Capo d’Orlando in the province of Messina, Casa Guido is a renovation project with a really unique selling point. The position 200m above sea level but just 350m inland gives you a birds eye view over the beautiful stretch of northern Sicily and the Tyrrhenian Sea that washes against it.

Capo d’Orlando itself, a port town of around 15,000 inhabitants, is just a six minute drive downhill. One of the most important communities of the thrilling Nebrodi Natural Park region, Sicily’s largest protected landscape, it has really begun to boom in recent years, thanks in no small part to the fabulous marina which was built in 2017. If you are a lover of the sea you will be in heaven with the option to moor your boat just minutes from your front door.

The historic villa is in need of a complete restoration, inside and out, but with a beautiful 3000m2 plot dotted with olive and fruit trees and the potential to create either a super-sized family villa or a pair of generous apartments, there is scope to end up with an absolute dream of a property for a price tag that is very reasonable for this part of the island.

The Property

While the terraced plot of this sea-view Sicilian property to renovate slopes down towards the north-east, the house has been angled towards the west, but there are stunning sea views from the whole of the front patio.

Indoors, the building is in fact three completely separate spaces, each with their own entrance – two on the ground floor, facing the sea, and one to the rear. One is just a kitchen with a really lovely wood-burning oven built into the walls and a walk-in larder. Another is a pair of connecting rooms, the larger one with a window to the front and the other an internal space to the rear.

Upstairs is the main living area of the house, with three well-sized rooms interconnecting and a small bathroom. The rooms are roughly equal in size, each about 15m2, with a second bathroom big enough to fit a shower. Two of them open onto deep balconies that make the very most of their panoramic vantage point by letting you see over the tops of the nearby trees. The slope is so steep that there is no risk of future construction ever impeding this beautiful view.

The construction is extremely sturdy, with walls up to a metre thick in places. This gives superb insulation as well as longevity. The ground floor has a beautiful ceiling in exposed hardwood which you will certainly want to retain in your final property, and the curved terracotta roof tiles are also quintessentially Sicilian – you’ll want to find a way to keep those, even if you are replacing the roof itself. The solid wooden doors are also nice, and the wooden windows with internal shutters could perhaps be refreshed rather than replaced, to keep the character of this historic cottage.

As well as the sea-view terrace there is a patio to the rear of the home, and the garden has been landscaped into a series of slopes and flat terraces in order to cultivate a huge range of fruit trees, including many Sicilian lemons, and a small olive grove. In total there is around 3,000m of outdoor space to enjoy.

A small outhouse beneath Casa Guido was once an external toilet, but would make a perfect storeroom for your gardening equipment and outdoor furniture.

Casa Guido is already connected to municipal electricity, you will only need to reactivate the meter. A large water tank provides a contingency against prolonged dry spells.

Surroundings

Behind you, the hillside continues to a height of about 500m above sea level on a similar gradient, so you are only exposed to the elements on the seaward side. At the foot of the hill is the nearest beach, two kilometres by road. It’s steep to walk but just a couple of minutes drive.

The immediate surroundings are completely rural, with few neighbours and no shops. However, Capo d’Orlando is one of the biggest towns on Nebrodi coast, and as such will provide supermarkets, restaurants and bars, healthcare facilities and everything else you need on a daily basis – you can get into the centre in five minutes.

The local authorities of the Nebrodi region are going out of their way to attract overseas property investment and new residents. You will find a very welcoming approach to good quality planning permission applications, which is not always the case in Italy.

Sicily’s most dramatic group of smaller islands is found just 30km out to sea, with Casa Guido offering beautiful views of the Aeolian archipelago on a clear day. The rocky cluster were formed by volcanic activity, and Stromboli remains one of the most active volcanoes in the world. If you don’t have your own boat, ferries leave regularly from the port of Milazzo, just 45 minutes to the east by car.

Further afield, Messina, the gateway to the Italian mainland, is a one hour drive, as is Cefalù, the fabulous Norman fishing town that has become one of Sicily’s most instantly recognisable tourist attractions. The nearest airports are found at Palermo and Catania, each more or less a two hour drive. And speaking of volcanos, the slopes of Mount Etna begin to rise just 30km to the south.

Potential

You will need to completely renovate the property before it’s habitable. It’s hard to put a general estimate of costs on a project that could be taken in so many different directions, but we think you could create yourself a perfect sea-view Sicilian property with an investment of around €90-100,000.

The pipes of the municipal water man finish about 25m from the property, so we would recommend extending those for greater convenience. The civic sewer is a similar distance away, or you you could install a septic tank or Imhoff pit.

We receive numerous questions about how to renovate a property in Sicily, and we answered as many of them as possible in this 2024 guide to the subject. You might also find it helpful to look through our article on building your own home in Sicily.

At Property in Sicily we have a belief that our job should continue until your new house really feels like home, and to that end we have a project management arm which can offer anything from consultancy and recommending trustworthy professionals to taking full responsibility for your restoration work. We can visit the site regularly if you’re not able to be present yourself, negotiate local rates for materials and services and communicate everything to your in your preferred language. We’re extremely proud of the testimonials we have received for this kind of work.

Attached to the house is the ruin of another property. There is the possibility of acquiring this, which would come with another 5,000 meters of land. Ask our team for updates on this situation if you would be interested in acquiring a second sea-view Sicilian property to renovate.