Salt air drifts up from the coast below and settles over a cluster of stone rooftops in the historic center of Pettineo. Step onto a hidden roof terrace here and the whole horizon opens up in front of you, hills folding down toward a strip of blue Mediterranean that seems to glow at the edges. You can almost hear the quiet, the kind that only exists in a Sicilian hill town where the loudest thing all day is a scooter or a church bell.
Now picture yourself living inside that view. Coffee in the morning on a sun warmed balcony, a mandarin orange tree heavy with fruit just below you in a private garden, stone walls around you that have stood for centuries. This is what two forgotten little homes in Pettineo are quietly offering right now, at prices that make the whole idea of owning a piece of Italy feel suddenly within reach.
Two Historic Center Homes in Pettineo Worth a Second Look
We keep bringing you affordable dream homes every week, and most of the time you, our viewers, snap them up within days or even hours of us publishing. But every so often a property slips through the cracks, not because anything is wrong with it, but because timing and hesitation get in the way.
That is exactly what happened with these two houses in Pettineo. Because they had not sold, we went back to the sellers and managed to negotiate the prices down even further, so what you are seeing now is a genuinely better deal than the one that already looked good the first time around.
Both homes sit in Pettineo’s centro storico (historic center), the old heart of town built up around the ruins of a nearly 950 year old Norman castle. Everything here, coffee, daily errands, the comune (town hall), is within an easy walk, which is part of what makes these two projects so livable even before a single wall gets touched.
Nonna Grazie, an Ancient Stone Home with a Hidden Sea View
This house is named for the grandmother who lived here for decades, and you can feel that lived-in history the moment you walk in. The stairs have steep risers, worth mentioning up front, but everything else about the structure is sound and functional.
The Bedrooms and a Rare Master Suite
The first level up holds a generously sized bedroom with a built in armadio (wardrobe), the kind of piece that essentially makes a room feel like a proper Italian bedroom. Right off it is a half bath, giving you something close to a small master suite, plus a private balcony overlooking the courtyard below and the comune down the road.
One step up is a second bedroom, currently fitted with a twin bed and a closet system that makes the space look narrower than it is. It measures around 100 square feet (about 9 square meters), and there is an easy fix here too, squaring off a closet under the stairs would open the whole room up for a full size bed.
The Grand Dining Room Upstairs, Ready to Open Up
The top floor is where this house really shows its potential. It is currently set up as a dining room, complete with a chandelier, but the sheer size of the space is the real story here, roughly 450 square feet (about 42 square meters) under an open wood beam ceiling that is actually part of the roof structure itself.
A non-structural wall currently divides this floor in two. Take it down and you have one enormous open living space, with a fully self-contained bathroom already in place and a good kitchen that could be reconfigured against a single wall for an even more open feel.
The Roof Terrace and Its Sea View Waiting to Be Uncovered
Step out onto the balcony off this top floor kitchen and you get your first real glimpse of the sea, partially hidden at the moment by a single tree branch that would take an afternoon to trim back. Once that branch is gone, this balcony becomes an everyday front row seat to the water.
Climb higher still to the roof and the view opens up completely, looking straight across Pettineo toward a neighboring hill town with the sea stretching out behind it. There is already a rooftop space here, just needing finished stairs and a conversation with the comune about a simple prefab structure so you can enjoy it shaded through the summer.
The Stalla, Cantina, and Medieval Laundry Room Below
Back at street level is where this home’s most charming surprise lives, an old stalla (stable) where mules were once tied up and led in for the night. The stonework is completely original, including a beautiful stone archway currently hidden behind later brick partitions that could easily come back out.
This level measures around 40 square meters (about 430 square feet) and includes an original stone manger, plus what can only be described as a medieval laundry room, complete with the built in basin where clothes were once scrubbed by hand. It even has its own separate street entrance, and the old staircase connecting it to the rest of the house is already there, just bricked over and easy to reopen.
Casa Piero, a Garden Retreat in the Center of Town
The second home is a true project house, an authentic stone structure that captured our attention specifically because of what is happening out back. The front is lovely, but it is the garden and the view beyond it that really sell this one.
The Painted Tile Floors and a Grand Room Downstairs
Walk in and the entry floor is genuinely beautiful, hand painted tiles likely fired just fifteen minutes away in Santo Stefano di Camastra. They are in excellent shape, though you may still choose to lift and replace them since this style of tile handles removal well.
The walls throughout this structure are remarkably straight for a home this age, which tells you a lot about how solidly it was built in the first place.
The Rooftop Waiting for a Terrace
Upstairs, mid century panels currently cover the original open beam ceiling, put up after the Second World War when modernizing was the trend. Pull those down, along with the aging roof and floor tiles, and you are looking at a full restoration, with new wood structure running around €200 per square meter to replace.
The top floor is currently home to a colony of pigeons and an old wood burning oven, and the whole roof needs to come off and go back on new. But out back, that same top level opens onto what could become a proper roof terrace, and the view from up there, looking straight out over the garden and the sea beyond it, is the kind that makes the whole project worth it.
The Citrus Garden Bursting with Fruit
Step out back and you land in roughly 300 square meters (about 3,200 square feet) of garden, planted with mandarin orange, persimmon, lemon, and several varieties of orange, all clearly still abundant despite years of light upkeep. One tree in particular stands out, a sanguinello (blood orange) variety that is genuinely famous in Sicily for its deep, almost wine colored fruit.
The original stone house was just two simple floors, with a later brick addition stacked on top that is already grandfathered in. That extra height is exactly what gives the future roof terrace its clear shot at the sea.
The Stalla Downstairs, Ready for a New Purpose
Just like Nonna Grazie, this home has its own ground floor stalla, exposed stone throughout, with the old feeding trough and drainage gutter still intact. It is a large space, big enough for a spiral staircase up to the main house if you wanted to connect the two levels internally.
The Million Dollar Sea View That Ties These Homes Together
Both of these houses share the same quiet secret, framed views of the Mediterranean from their upper floors and rooftops. It is easy to walk past a project house and only see the work ahead of you, but standing on either of these roof terraces, looking out over stone rooftops toward that line of blue water, is what actually sells the dream.
Neither view requires anything dramatic to unlock it. A trimmed branch, a finished staircase, a simple conversation with the comune about a lightweight roof structure, and you have a private lookout over one of Sicily’s most underrated coastlines.
Property Highlights of Casa Piero and Nonna Grazie in Pettineo
- Nonna Grazie: three level stone home in Pettineo’s historic center, named for the grandmother who lived there for decades
- Nonna Grazie includes a near master suite with half bath, a second bedroom, a roughly 450 square foot (42 square meter) top floor room, a full bath, a deep balcony, roof terrace potential with sea views, and a ground floor stalla with an original medieval laundry room
- Casa Piero: authentic stone project house with hand painted antique floor tiles and remarkably straight original walls
- Casa Piero includes a roughly 300 square meter (3,200 square foot) private garden full of citrus trees, roof terrace potential with sea views, and its own ground floor stalla
- Both homes are within walking distance of coffee, daily services, and the town’s comune
- Restoration costs for new wood structure run around €200 per square meter, based on local pricing shared in the tour
- Watch the full tour of both Pettineo homes
- Featured in Episode 80
- Asking price: €25,000 for Casa Piero and €30,000 for Nonna Grazie
Please note: our property tours stay online long after filming, and homes like this tend to sell quickly, so this one may no longer be available. If it has already sold, we can still help you find something similar. Tell us your dream, and we’ll help make it real.
A Final Look at Two Forgotten Pettineo Homes Worth Revisiting
These are exactly the kind of houses that make moving to Italy feel possible instead of theoretical. Two stone structures, both with good bones, both with that same quiet gift of a sea view waiting at the top of a staircase.
Yes, both are genuine project homes. Nonna Grazie needs plaster and floor repairs plus a finished roof terrace, and Casa Piero needs a full roof and wood structure replacement, but neither job is beyond what a good architect and geometra (surveyor) can manage.
What you are really buying at €25,000 and €30,000 is a foothold in one of Sicily’s most character filled hill towns, a garden full of citrus, and a view of the Mediterranean that no renovation budget could ever recreate from scratch.
If either of these sounds like the kind of second chance you have been waiting for, now is the moment to take a closer look before someone else does.
