Salt air drifts through an open kitchen window while a thousand-year-old bell tower stands watch just beyond the glass. You are standing at a worn tile counter with a cup of coffee, and past the rooftops of a medieval hill town, the sea stretches out in a hazy, silvery blue. This is not a postcard. This is the view from the kitchen table of a stone house in Tusa, Sicily, and it could be yours for €55,000.
We have toured a lot of stone homes here in Sicily, but this one is different. Most of the ones we show you have been plastered over at some point, smoothing away the original character. This house still has its bare stone walls, its centuries-old quarry tile floors, and open beam ceilings that have not been touched in generations. And just when you think the house has shown you everything, it saves its best surprise for last. Stick around, because we are also taking you to a piece of countryside land nearby with an olive orchard, fruit trees, and a wine press carved straight into the rock, and it is asking just €23,000.
The Ancient Soul of Casa La Perla in Tusa, Sicily
We are calling this one Casa La Perla, and it sits right in the historic center of Tusa, a hill town we have shown you before on the channel. It is a two bedroom, two bathroom stone home, and unlike a lot of what we tour, this one was built later than some neighbors but is still centuries old itself.
The moment you step through the main entrance, you notice the original quarry tile under your feet and the thick stone walls around you. These are not decorative touches. This house is the real thing.
The Ground Floor’s Original Stone and Open Beams
Right off the entrance you get your first look at the open beam ceiling, and it is genuinely gorgeous. There is a full-size working wood burning fireplace here too, which is a rare find in these older homes.
Below this level, out of view on our walk-through, there is a garage that also doubles as a cantina (cellar). That is useful storage space that a lot of stone houses in these hill towns simply do not have.
The Antique Bedroom and Its Private Balcony
The first bedroom we walked into is full of antique furniture, and we were told those pieces could potentially be negotiated into the sale. From there, we stepped out onto the lowest of the home’s balconies.
Looking out, you see the stone streets of Tusa below and a neighboring stone house close enough to feel like part of the view. Jeia pointed out the double doors leading onto the balcony, the kind you throw open every morning to let the light pour in.
There is one issue to know about here. A leak from the bathroom above has caused some plaster damage on this level. It is fixable, but it is worth budgeting for.
Upstairs, Where Custom Tile Meets a Feature Wall Waiting to Happen
Head up another level and the floor changes to an original custom tile, hand painted decades or centuries ago. The second bedroom here gets natural light from a window above the bed and another tucked inside its closet, which is a small but charming detail.
One wall on this floor still has plaster over the original stone, and it is practically begging to be stripped back into an exposed stone feature wall. We would do it in a heartbeat.
The full bathroom on the ground level has a tub and those same thick corner walls, about two and a half feet of solid stone, with natural light coming in from three sides thanks to the home’s corner position in the block. In Italian we would call that particolare (distinctive), and it really is.
The Sea View You Wake Up To in This 1,000-Year-Old Corner of Tusa
Now we get to the part of this house that stopped us in our tracks. Head up to the top floor and you land in the kitchen, which every Sicilian home treats as its most important room, and this one does not disappoint.
There is natural light from three sides, a centuries-old wood burning pizza oven built right into the wall, and then there is the view out the window. A domed, Arab-influenced bell tower rises just beyond the rooftops, built roughly a thousand years ago when the original residents of Tusa moved up from the seaside town of Alesa below to evade invaders. That bell tower was the very first structure in this neighborhood, and it still keeps watch today, even though the bell itself was silenced by lightning centuries ago.
The Terrazzo and That Sweeping Sea View
Just below the kitchen sits a huge terrazzo (rooftop terrace), easily 300 square feet (about 28 square meters) by our estimate, and it is already plumbed for a kitchen or bar setup. We would add a shade structure here, whether fabric, aluminum, or wood, and simply live outside all summer.
From up here the sea view opens all the way out, hazy blue on the day we filmed but unmistakably there, stretching out past the rooftops and the bell tower toward the water. On a clear day you can reportedly make out Pagarati (Cape Calava) in the distance.
The Kitchen’s Ancient Pizza Oven and the Bell Tower Beyond
Back in the kitchen, the tile work is original and beautifully worn, and there is a built-in pantry with a small locking door that shows off the age and craftsmanship of the place. There is a second bathroom on this level too.
Above the kitchen is another roof terrace, and just below is a lower level bedroom with its own garage access underneath. Every level of this house has its own reason to linger.
Property Highlights of Casa La Perla
- Two bedroom, two bathroom stone home in the historic center of Tusa, Sicily
- Original centuries-old quarried stone floors throughout
- Open beam ceilings with authentic, untouched character
- Exposed stone walls, roughly two and a half feet thick in places
- Private garage and cantina (cellar) space
- Balcony overlooking the town’s stone streets
- Rooftop terrazzo of roughly 300 square feet (about 28 square meters), already plumbed
- Sweeping sea views from the kitchen and terrace, framed by a 1,000-year-old bell tower
- Wood-fired pizza oven built into the kitchen wall
- Some bathroom-related plaster water damage to be repaired
- Watch the full property tour
- Featured in Episode 30
- Asking price: €55,000
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 Bonus Discovery of 2.5 Acres with Olive Orchard and Ancient Wine Press in Tusa
Some of you may remember a piece of land we featured a while back, a flat stretch of countryside with olive trees, fruit trees, a sweeping sea view, and an ancient stone palmento (wine press). One quick viewer snapped it up the very day the video went live.
For personal reasons, that buyer had to back out of the deal, and we completely respect that. The good news is the land is back on the market, and this time we negotiated the seller down by €7,000. It is now asking just €23,000, and honestly, this will not last long.
The property is a full hectare, which comes out to about 10,000 square meters (roughly 2.5 acres), planted with established olive trees and fruit trees. There is a stone structure on site as well.
The real showstopper is the palmento carved into the rock, where Sicilians centuries ago would crush grapes by foot and let the juice run down into waiting barrels to become wine. That history is still sitting right there on the land, cleaned up and ready to be part of your own dolce vita (sweet life).
And just like the stone house in town, this land has its own sea view, one that would sit in plain sight of that little stone house we just toured.
Property Highlights of the Tusa Countryside Land
- Roughly 10,000 square meters (about 2.5 acres) of flat countryside land
- Established olive orchard and fruit trees
- Stone structure already on the property
- Ancient stone palmento (traditional wine press) carved into the rock
- Sweeping sea view across the property
- Seller recently reduced the price by €7,000
- Take the video tour of this land
- Asking price: €23,000
Two Sicilian Dreams Under €55K in Tusa
We walked away from this tour still thinking about that kitchen table in Casa La Perla, coffee cup in hand, that bell tower and the sea stretching out beyond it. It is the kind of view that makes you stop mid-sentence, and honestly, we get it, because we felt it too.
At €55,000 for a two bedroom stone home with this much original character, and €23,000 for 2.5 acres of olive orchard with its own sea view and a piece of wine-making history built right into the rock, these two properties represent exactly the kind of opportunity we love bringing to you.
Neither one is perfect. The house needs some plaster repair, and the land will need a vision for what you build or restore. But both come with something you cannot manufacture, centuries of history and a view of the Mediterranean that never gets old.
If either of these sparks something in you, whether it is the historic village life or the quiet countryside with your own olive trees, do not sit on it too long. Land like this, at this price, does not stay on the market for long in Sicily.
