Salt air drifts through the shutters of a centuries old stone house perched in the historic heart of Tusa, and the first thing that hits you isn’t the dust or the old tile, it’s the view. Step onto the balcony and the Mediterranean stretches out below the rooftops, with the mountains rising up behind the town on the other side. This is the kind of window you’d normally have to pay a fortune for, and here it comes attached to a stone house that barely needs any work.
We’re talking about mornings with your espresso on a deep stone balcony, watching the light change over the sea while the whole medieval village of Tusa wakes up around you. Afternoons wandering cobblestone streets past the beautifully restored Church of San Nicola, right outside your own window. Evenings with the windows thrown open, the breeze carrying up from the water, no traffic noise, just Tusa being Tusa. That’s the daily life this house is selling, long before we even get to the price.
The Story Behind Casa Celeste
We call this one Casa Celeste, and it sits in the Centro Storico (historic center) of Tusa, in the oldest medieval part of town. We love Tusa for exactly this reason. It has that wonderful combination of sea views and mountain views, all wrapped up in a hilltop village that still feels completely authentic.
What really sold us on this particular house is that it’s a true wholesale deal. Unlike a lot of the one euro house listings out there that need a total gut rebuild, this one is structurally sound and honestly needs very little to become livable.
It’s a stone house on three levels, and while we’re presenting it as a project, the hard finishes throughout are already in good shape. The plaster over the stone is holding up well and mostly just needs a fresh top coat of silicato, a colored stucco finish that will protect the walls for years to come.
The Ground Floor and Its Full Bathroom Ready to Use
You enter up a couple of small steps into a little landing, then one step up brings you into a surprisingly large bathroom. It’s fully functional right now, with a tub, a shower, a pedestal sink, a toilet, and a bidet, all in a matching pale lime green tile.
There’s no window in this bathroom, and that’s on purpose. There’s another room just behind it, facing a different street, that does have a window, and that room plays a big role later in this story.
The First Floor Bedroom and Its Balcony Surprise
Head up to the first level and you’ll find a bedroom that looks smaller than it is, mostly because of a huge built-in wardrobe taking up space near the entrance. If this becomes a vacation home rather than a full-time residence, you probably won’t need that much storage, so relocating or removing the wardrobe opens the room up nicely.
Then comes the first real surprise of the tour. Step through to a beautifully proportioned balcony, well built and in excellent shape. It’s a preview of what’s waiting on the floor above.
The Top Floor, Where the Sea View Steals the Show
Up on the top floor, the house opens into a large landing, refreshingly wide rather than the cramped corridors you sometimes get in these old stone homes. A window here looks straight out over the street to the stone facade of the Church of San Nicola.
Throughout the house you’ll notice cheap white panel ceilings, likely covering original open beam ceilings underneath. Those panels are meant to come down, and doing so should reveal beautiful exposed wood beams throughout.
Then there’s the front balcony on this top level, deep and well built, framing your stone street, the church, and that sea view all at once. It’s the kind of spot where you could sit for an hour with a glass of wine and just watch the light move across the water.
Inside, a dividing wall between the kitchen and the next room is non-supporting, with a beam already carrying the load above it. Take that wall down and you get light flowing from the front of the house straight through to the back.
Out back there’s a second balcony, just as well built as the front one, looking out over the mountains and the sea together. The roof itself has been checked out recently, with a brand new copper gutter installed, which is a genuinely good sign for a home this old.
The Bonus Cantina, A Hidden Second Home
Here’s where this deal gets really interesting. Beneath that top floor bedroom sits another room that isn’t technically part of Casa Celeste at all. It belongs to the neighboring cantina (cellar), which we tracked down and negotiated directly with the owners to include in this sale.
That cantina is accessed from the street at the back of the house. It was originally a stall for animals, and you can still see the stone feeding trough and the iron hook where a mule would have been tied up. The stone walls and massive original beams are all in solid shape.
The sellers agreed to a price of €10,000 for this space, which connects directly to the bathroom in the main house. Imagine opening a doorway there and turning that oversized bathroom into the entrance of a proper master suite, doubling your square footage in one move.
Property Highlights of Casa Celeste in Tusa
- Located in the Centro Storico of Tusa, a hilltop medieval village in Sicily
- Sea view and mountain view from front and rear balconies
- Stone construction across three levels, structurally sound with good hard finishes
- Fully functional large bathroom with tub, shower, pedestal sink, toilet, and bidet
- Aluminum anodized windows and doors already installed
- Recently checked roof with a new copper gutter
- Optional attached cantina with a connected hidden room, adding significant living space
- Wholesale, negotiable pricing typical of our sourced properties
- Watch the full property tour of Casa Celeste
- Featured in Episode 64
- Asking price: €25,000 (plus an optional €10,000 for the attached cantina)
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.
The Investment Angle, Technical vs Visionary
A viewer of ours, an investor based here in Italy, once sent us a distinction that stuck with us. He described a technical investment as something visible, a snapshot of the present built on current data like cost per square meter, land registry details, and the condition of the systems.
A visionary, territorial investment is the opposite. It’s invisible right now. It’s an act of strategic imagination that looks past what the house is today toward what the surrounding territory will become tomorrow.
Casa Celeste is a perfect example of both at once. The technical side is straightforward, sound stone construction, good roof, functional systems, at a wholesale price. The visionary side is everything Tusa itself is becoming as more people discover this stretch of the Sicilian coast.
We invite you to read a real buyer’s story to see what working with us is truly like, from that first phone call to closing day.
Your Sea View Home Awaits in Tusa
For €25,000, Casa Celeste gives you a structurally sound stone house in one of Sicily’s most authentic hilltop villages, with a sea view and mountain view built right into its balconies. That alone makes it one of the better values we’ve come across.
Add the optional €10,000 cantina, and for a combined €35,000 you get a second connected space with its own character, ready to be transformed into a proper master suite or extra living area.
This isn’t a total rebuild situation. It’s a home where the bones are good, the views are already there waiting for you, and the work needed is more cosmetic than structural.
If you’ve been holding out for an affordable, livable entry point into Sicily, this is exactly the kind of rare find we mean when we say it won’t last.
