Salt air drifts through an open kitchen window while an orange tree sways just outside in a private little garden. You can hear the faint hum of the sea a hundred meters away, close enough that you could walk there in flip flops with a towel over your shoulder and be in the water in minutes.
This is daily life at Casa Ivano, a four bedroom home tucked into the seaside community of Villa Margi on Sicily’s coast. There is no sea view from inside these walls, but the lifestyle that comes with living one block from the water, in a town known for art, beach lidos, and evening spritz, more than makes up for it.
We want to walk you through this home the way we walked through it ourselves, room by room, because there is a lot packed into 135 square meters (about 1,450 square feet).
The Artist’s Village of Villa Margi
Villa Margi sits at the edge of a much larger region known as Fumara d’Arte (river of art), where artists have donated their time and materials to install massive modern sculptures across the countryside. You can be driving through what feels like open farmland and suddenly come across a towering sculpture rising out of nowhere.
The town itself has a smooth beachfront path where people walk and jog every day. There are bars in the Italian sense, meaning a spot for your morning coffee and a dolce (sweet pastry), not a place you’d go for a drink at noon.
In the evening, everyone gathers at a beach club called Calypso, a lido (beach club) with live music and spritz on tap. We have spent plenty of evenings there ourselves, and the energy is exactly the kind of relaxed, social scene that makes coastal Sicilian life so appealing.
Stepping Inside a Living Room Built for Modern Life
The entry opens into a spacious living area with custom slab doors throughout, the kind you pay real money for elsewhere. A wooden beam runs across the ceiling, dressed up rather than hidden, alongside modern lighting fixtures.
Right off the entry is a playroom that the current owners’ two boys have used every summer for years. All the furnishings in the home, by the way, can be included in an offer, which makes this even more turnkey.
The Kitchen With Lava Stone From Etna
Past the living room is what used to be an open veranda and is now a fully enclosed kitchen, registered as such with the comune (town hall). The countertops are made from petra lava, lava rock pulled from Mount Etna, coated in enamel and fired for hours at 1,000 degrees Celsius (about 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit).
The result is a surface that is essentially bulletproof, and the owners carried the same material theme onto other furniture pieces around the home. There is an oven, a dishwasher, and a Corian sink combo, all set within that same lava stone theme.
A Private Garden Made for Orange Trees and Outdoor Showers
Step outside and you find a genuinely private garden, not a shared communal space. There is an orange tree, rosemary, and a lemon tree tucked in the back corner.
The washing machine sits out here too, run on gas from a bombola (gas canister), alongside a heat pump for central heating and cooling. There is even an outdoor shower for rinsing off sand after a day at the beach, which is a small detail that says a lot about how this home was designed to be lived in.
Two Bedrooms, Two Baths, and Room to Reconfigure
A line in the tile floor marks where a parapet wall could go if you wanted to split this home into two separate apartments, each with two bedrooms and one bathroom. On the other side of that line is a second kitchen area, another converted veranda, complete with a wood-burning pizza oven and a gas range.
Right now the whole home flows as one large luxury unit, and honestly, that is probably how we would keep it rather than doing the work to divide it.
The Primary Suite and Its Walk-In Closet
The primary bedroom, what Italians call the camera padronale (main bedroom), sits behind a glass door with a mosquito screen. Its bathroom is three-quarter, no tub, done in neutral tones that will work with almost any style you bring to it.
Down the hallway, which is a comfortable 1.2 meters wide (about 4 feet), you’ll find a second bedroom and a walk-in armadio (closet) with ample storage. Underneath the home there is also a small cantina (cellar), about 200 square feet, with a low ceiling but plenty of long-term storage space that renters would never need to touch.
A Flexible Layout for Rental Income
Because this home can be divided into two two-bedroom, one-bath apartments, there is a real rental income angle here if you want it. You could live in one half and rent the other, or rent both out during the summer high season.
Villa Margi has enough going on, bars, restaurants, a lido right on the beach, that renters would never be bored. And because the home sits a block back from the water, you get to enjoy the nightlife without the noise keeping you up.
The only issue we noticed during the tour was a small patch of plaster that needs repair, likely from moisture or hydrostatic pressure. It is a minor, fixable thing in an otherwise very well kept home.
A Second Option in Motta d’Affermo’s Stone Home
For anyone chasing a cheaper entry point into Sicily, we also stopped by a short but charming stone home in the comune of Motta d’Affermo. It is a much smaller, simpler property, but it speaks to how varied the price range can be here, from a fully finished coastal home like Casa Ivano to a rustic stone house waiting for a renovation.
Property Highlights of Casa Ivano
- 135 square meters of interior space (about 1,450 square feet)
- Four bedrooms and two three-quarter bathrooms
- Located in Villa Margi, roughly 100 meters from the beach
- Private garden with orange, lemon, and rosemary trees
- Petra lava (Etna lava stone) countertops throughout the kitchen and furniture
- Outdoor shower and gas-powered central heating and cooling
- Second kitchen area with a wood-burning pizza oven
- Cantina storage cellar of about 200 square feet beneath the home
- Layout can be divided into two rental apartments or kept as one luxury residence
- All furnishings can be included in the offer
- Price is negotiable
- Watch the full property tour
- Featured in Episode 42
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.
We think the best way to know what it’s like working with us is to hear it from someone who’s done it, so read this buyer’s story about our process from start to finish.
A Move-In Ready Life Near the Sicilian Sea
Casa Ivano is the kind of home that lets you skip years of renovation headaches and just start living. Four bedrooms, a private garden, and a hundred meter walk to the water is a hard combination to beat.
There is no sea view from these windows, but the tradeoff is a quiet, private garden and a location so close to the beach that a view almost feels unnecessary. Add in the artist sculptures scattered around Fumara d’Arte and the evening spritz scene at Calypso, and you have a full lifestyle, not just a house.
Whether you keep it as one large luxury home or split it into two rental units, this property gives you real flexibility. And for those chasing something smaller and cheaper, the little stone home in Motta d’Affermo is proof that Sicily still has options at every budget.
If either of these sounds like it fits your search, we would love to help you take the next step toward making Sicily home.
