Property Description

Beautiful, Modern Four-bedroom Family Villa with Olive Groves in Three Hectare Estate, Five Kilometres From the Beach in Southern Sicily

The beautiful Tenuta Pia, a large detached villa with olive groves in a 30,000m2 estate, lies less than five kilometres from the nearest beach, between Agrigento and Gela in the province of Caltanissetta. With a huge, perfectly maintained olive grove, numerous fruit trees and a welcoming, sunny garden it is perfect for lovers of nature and for anyone who has dreamed of having their own little agricultural business in the sun.

Completely renovated in 2016, the villa is presented in perfect condition. It is helpfully sold exactly as seen in our photos and video, including all furniture and maintenance equipment, making it the most straightforward way possible to buy a house in Sicily. The vendor is even including their tractor.

The olive trees yield up to 1,000 litres of oil per year, with good quality product selling for €20 a bottle. Obviously there are overheads involved, but we are still talking about a very profitable business.

With four bedrooms, you comfortably sleep eight people here, and if you enjoy entertaining then the covered outdoor dining room can seat twenty people or more! There’s even a kitchen out there, to make sure you can enjoy the atmosphere (and encourage your guests to lend a hand!) while you prepare their meal.

There is such potential here. Two outbuildings near the edge of the property would be perfect for keeping pigs or chickens. The garden has been largely paved, in well-laid brickwork, to minimise maintenance, but you have green fingers and plan on making Sicily your permanent home, you could easily add some turf or perhaps a vegetable garden. And of course, with so much space and the fabulous Sicilian climate, you can’t fail to dream about adding your own private swimming pool.

The Property

A small porch frames the front door, which leads you directly into a large living room with an open-plan kitchen. On the left, a corridor leads to the sleeping area where you will find three large, bright bright bedrooms, each of which has an en-suite bathroom. To the right of the corridor is the master bedroom, also of course with an en-suite.

The floors are mostly easy-to-clean terracotta tile to match the colour of the exterior, but the corridor and two of the bedrooms have had a wooden parquet-style floor laid for comfort and a little extra warmth underfoot in the mornings.

The furniture (which, remember, is all included) includes some lovely pieces like the wooden dining suite, comfortable sofas, huge wardrobes in the bedrooms and plenty of wrought iron garden furniture.

Structurally and cosmetically, the villa is in perfect condition: from your first sight you will immediately see the care and attention which the current owners have invested in their home. The warm Mediterranean clay colour on the external plaster looks as thought it had been painted yesterday. The double-glazed windows are fitted with, mosquito nets, blackout blinds and security grilles. There are TV aerial connections in every room.

Modern air conditioning units in each of the rooms guarantee your comfort in any season. Hot water is provided by a pair of solar heaters which can store 250 litres apiece – big enough for any group you might be hosting. Cold water is supplied by a rainwater recovery system, which feeds into a purification plant installed in the outhouse. Two giant cisterns store an incredible 140,000 and 60,000 litres respectively – to give you an idea of that scale, imagine a 20m x 7m swimming pool, or a normal kitchen tap running non stop for about three weeks!

Besides the large olive groves, the whole house is surrounded by flowerbeds, plants and a perfectly manicured garden, with an outdoor shower and utility room with an additional WC.

One of the outbuildings has been converted into has been used as a storeroom where all the tools needed to maintain the garden can be stored. Next to this is the outdoor dining room with its wood-burning stove, perfect for grilling up a huge rustic feast.

The estate is completely fenced. It has an automatic gate and all of the outdoor areas, including the long straight driveway, are illuminated. The house is protected by an alarm system. The storeroom is amply stocked with all the equipment you need to take case of your fabulous villa with olive groves.

Surroundings

The villa is easily accessible, off a countryside lane whose tarmac is in impressively good condition for rural Sicily. You are in open country, with no noise except the sounds of nature, and complete privacy.

The nearest town is Falconara, a little beach town with a ruined castle directly alongside the sand. Butera, a fortified town of around four thousand inhabitants, is about fifteen minutes’ drive, and here you can find a wider choice of restaurants, cafes and supermarkets.

The beautiful sandy beaches of Manfria and Falconara are just a ten kilometre drive away. Inland the Val de Noto is a fabulous UNESCO world heritage site that extends over more than half a dozen baroque towns including Noto, Modica and Ragusa.

The airport of Comiso is just an hour away, with the larger one at Sicily’s second-largest city, Catania airport, reachable in about 100 minutes. The fabulous historical treasures of Siracusa, the dramatic slopes of Mount Etna and the ancient temples of Agrigento are all within an easy day trip’s distance. The largest city on the island, Palermo, is three hours away.

Potential

Obviously you might well want to make Tenuta Pia your new home. Aside from the quality of life, transferring your residency to Sicily can bring some handsome tax benefits that would go a long way towards covering your outlay over a few years. You will certainly be able to invite and accommodate all the guests you could ever want – and it will be a popular waiting list, you can be sure!

Alternatively, the sheer size of the house and the outdoor facilities make it perfect for use as a Bed & Breakfast or ‘agriturismo’ – a category of guest house in Italy where the holiday experience is paired with an agricultural experience. These are very popular with property owners for the tax breaks and EU subsidies which may be on offer. It’s a huge advantage here that every bedroom has its own private bathroom.

Although served by mains electricity, Tenuta Pia is not connected to any gas supply. Depending on how you want to cook and whether you see a pressing need to install radiators, this may not be an issue. Obviously, with this much space and the incredible climate in the region it would be extremely cost-effective in the long run to install a photovoltaic system to generate electricity, and these still qualify for subsidy under the Italian ‘bonus’ system.

We mentioned the idea of adding a swimming pool. If you want a medium sized, sunken one then you should budget around €25,000 – €30,000 for the construction work. But on the plus side, with the villa and estate in such good condition, you won’t need to budget for any other investment in the short term.