Salt air rolls up from the shoreline below and settles over an old stone terrace warmed by the morning sun, the kind of moment you would happily trade a commute for. Standing here in Canneto, just outside Santo Stefano di Camastra on Sicily’s northern coast, you can look down into a valley lined with bamboo and hear a creek rushing somewhere beneath the olive trees. Turn slightly and there it is, the Mediterranean stretched out silver blue all the way to the horizon, visible from every single floor of this house.
You are five minutes from the beach on foot, close enough that the family who grew up here used to run it in two and a half minutes flat. Down the hill there is a bar and a restaurant, so you would rarely need a car for the basics of daily life. This is the setting for Casa Carmela, an ancient stone house asking just €60,000, negotiable, and it might be the most complete version yet of the cheap house in Italy dream so many of you keep asking us about.
The Story of Casa Carmela and the Negrelli Family
We named this one Carmela after the woman who raised her family here through most of the 20th century. The Negrelli family has owned this property for about a century, possibly longer, and it shows in every corner of the place.
One of the sellers is 88 years old, and he told us how his father used to bake bread every single day in the wood burning oven still standing on the lower level. His brother told us he used to sleep in the coolest room of the house as a boy, back when the family fixed part of it up in the 1930s.
This is very much a project home. But the bones underneath are stone that has not moved in centuries, and that combination of history and opportunity is exactly why we wanted to bring you here.
Walking Through the Ancient Stone Home
You enter from street level onto the floor that was actually built and lived in most recently, sometime in the last century. This is the part our geometra (surveyor) will likely recommend taking down to the studs.
The Upper Floor, a Later Addition Ready to Come Down
The kitchen here is really just a shell now, since Italian kitchens are furniture rather than fixtures and the previous owners took theirs when they left. There is a crack running the full circumference of one room, a sign of movement in this newer brick construction sitting above the original roofline.
Behind the house runs the bridge for the autostrada (highway), which might sound like a concern until you realize sound travels upward, not down. In practice you catch only the faintest hint of passing traffic, nothing that gets in the way of the calm here.
The Terrace and Its Postcard Sea View
Step out onto the terrace on this level and just take it in for a second. Bamboo lines the creek below, each little plot beyond it tended by a different cousin in the extended family, and the whole scene opens up toward the water.
This is one of several vantage points in the house where the sea view is simply given to you, no construction required. It is the kind of view that makes you stop mid-sentence, and it repeats itself, in slightly different form, on almost every level below.
The Original Stone Rooms, Solid After Centuries
Head down and you reach the true heart of the property, the original stone structure. The walls here are a full two feet thick, and unlike the floor above, nothing about this level has shifted in hundreds of years.
One room served as a kitchen and dining area centuries ago, complete with the wood burning oven where fresh bread was made daily. From here you look out over a hillside oliveto (olive orchard) with the Mediterranean sitting just beyond it, and the whole space carries a genuine sense of quiet.
The Ground Floor Stalla, Once Home to the Family Mule
Keep descending and you reach the coolest part of the house, insulated by the earth around it, where the family once slept during the hottest months. From here you pass into the stalla (stable), where the family kept their mule, complete with the original stone feeding trough still built into the wall.
It is rough, it is raw, and it is genuinely beautiful. This is the kind of character people email us about constantly, asking where they can still find it in Italy.
The Garden Plot and the Land Around It
Included with the house is a 40 square meter (about 430 square foot) patch of terreno (land) right off the original stone terrazzo, perfect for turning into your own orto (vegetable garden). It gets morning sun and sits just below the stone wall that marks the property line.
Separately, there is roughly an acre (about 4,000 square meters) of orchard land a short walk from the house that can also be purchased, though it is not part of this listing’s asking price. Between the two, there is real room here to grow your own food if that is part of your Italian dream.
What It Would Cost to Bring Carmela Back to Life
We always try to be upfront about renovation numbers rather than let anyone walk in blind. Based on research into local costs, a full move-in ready restoration here, permits included, looks realistic at around €60,000, though it could run higher with high-end fixtures and finishes.
Labor costs in Sicily are meaningfully lower than what you would be used to in the US, Canada, or Australia, which is a big part of why that number works. Given that the neighboring homes on this street have all already been renovated, this is genuinely the case of finding the roughest house on the best block, which is exactly the kind of opportunity worth chasing.
There is also a rental angle worth thinking about. Live here in the spring and fall when the weather is at its best, then rent it out over the summer when this coastline is full of visitors looking for exactly this kind of stay.
Property Highlights of Casa Carmela
- Ancient stone construction dating back centuries, with a more recent upper floor
- Sea and mountain views from every level of the house
- Just a 5-minute walk to the beach, with a bar and restaurant also within walking distance
- 40 square meters (about 430 square feet) of private garden land included
- An additional roughly 1-acre (about 4,000 square meter) orchard plot available nearby for separate purchase
- Located in Canneto, just outside Santo Stefano di Camastra on Sicily’s northern coast
- Estimated renovation budget of around €60,000 for a full move-in ready restoration
- Take the video tour of this home
- Featured in Episode 75
- Asking price: €60,000
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 Rare Sicilian Project Worth a Serious Look
Casa Carmela is not polished, and it is not pretending to be. What it offers instead is centuries-old stone, a walk to the beach measured in minutes, and a sea view that greets you on every single floor of the house.
We do not find that combination often, and when we do, it rarely comes with a price tag this low. For anyone serious about buying property in Italy on a realistic budget, this one deserves a real look.
Whether you picture it as a forever home, a summer rental, or a slow multi-year renovation project, the foundation here is genuinely solid. The rest is really just about what you choose to build on top of it.
If that view from the terrace is the kind of thing you have been chasing, Carmela might just be worth the trip to come see in person.
