Salt air drifts across our terrazzo (terrace) most mornings, carrying the smell of the sea and something sweeter, the scent of subtropical flowers we planted with our own hands. From certain corners of our villa, the water stretches out toward the Aeolian Islands, and on a clear day you can pick out their silhouettes floating on the horizon. This is the view that convinced us to stay in Sicily forever.
But this is not just a story about a beautiful view. It is a story about almost losing everything we built, and what it took to fight our way back. We want to share it honestly, cracks in the walls and all, because we know some of you reading this are facing your own storms right now, literal or otherwise.
The Sea View That Convinced Us to Stay in Sicily
Our stretch of coast was awarded blue flag status, which in Italy means the water quality is officially recognized as some of the cleanest around. Local fishermen tell us the fish here are plentiful and clean because of it.
When we found this spot, it felt perfect in every way. The mountain views behind us, the sea in front of us, the history and culture woven into every corner of daily life here. We were about 80 percent finished with our renovation when everything changed.
When the Rain Would Not Stop
It started like any other day. Dark clouds were gathering over the sea, but we had no idea what was coming.
For two weeks, torrential rain fell across Sicily without letting up, the kind of storm that made national news for the flooding and landslides it triggered across the island. Entire villages ended up covered in mud.
Cracks in the Wall, Fear in Our Hearts
We started noticing small cracks appearing in our retaining walls. Every morning we would wake up and the cracks would be a little bigger than the day before.
Then the earth actually gave way. A section of our terrazzo slowly began sliding down the hillside, and we could hear the iron reinforcement bending before it finally gave out completely.
Our villa had been built into the mountainside on one corner, which gave it stability there, but the opposite corner was left exposed and vulnerable. That was the corner failing in front of our eyes.
Fighting to Save Our Home
There was no time to sit and grieve what was happening. We called in excavators immediately.
We dug down 5 feet (about 1.5 meters) deep on both the interior and exterior sides of that vulnerable corner wall. Then we brought in a truckload of steel, tied it into place, and poured six cubic meters (about 8 cubic yards) of iron-reinforced concrete into and around that foundation.
How the Berlin Poles Anchored Our Future into Bedrock
Even that was not enough on its own. Our insurance company would not cover the existing walls, and our funds were running low fast.
We brought in a geologist and an engineer, and together we landed on a serious solution. We would drill 33 pali berlinesi (Berlin piles, solid steel I-beams encased in concrete) into the ground, each one 14 meters long (about 45 feet).
It took two months of heavy machinery digging into the earth, dirt clouds hanging over our home every single day. In total we brought in roughly half a kilometer (about a third of a mile) of steel I-beams for this one corner alone.
Rebuilding, Stronger Than Before
Once the poles were secured, we built a reinforced concrete wall connecting the tops of all of them so nothing could shift again. We even designed it on a radius to make it stronger and more resistant to any future landslide.
We lost part of our original terrazzo in the process, but we did not lose our home. Over the following months, the sound of drills and excavators was slowly replaced by hammers and saws as the new structure took shape.
A Grand New Entrance and a Blooming Garden
Once the retaining wall was complete, we turned our attention to the private garden surrounding the villa. We filled it with subtropical plants and flowers, the same greenery we still enjoy today.
We also decided to invest real time and care into designing a proper, gorgeous entrance into the villa, something that felt worthy of everything we had just fought through.
What Is Still to Come for Our Infinity Pool
This whole ordeal set our renovation timeline back roughly three years. That is a hard thing to admit, but it is the truth.
The upside is that those steel poles now run deep into bedrock, which gives us a foundation strong enough for what comes next. We are designing an infinity edge pool that will run about 45 feet long, positioned so that from the villa it will look like the water is pouring straight into the sea beyond it.
Projects this technical take real time on an island like Sicily, so we are still working toward that finish line.
How Resilience Rebuilt Our Sicilian Dream
We do not tell this story to scare anyone away from Italy. We tell it because it is honest, and because it shaped how we think about building a life here.
The sea view from our villa still stops us in our tracks most mornings, maybe even more so now because of what it took to protect it. Every crack we filled and every pole we sank into that hillside was worth it for the life we get to live here today.
If you are in the middle of your own version of this storm right now, whatever that looks like for you, we want you to know it can turn out okay on the other side. For every problem, there really is a solution, even when it does not feel that way in the moment.
We are still here, still building, and the villa is still standing with its face toward the sea.
