Salt air drifts up the narrow stone lanes of Tusa, curling past centuries-old doorways until it reaches a terrace tucked just below a thousand-year-old castle. Stand there on a clear day and the Mediterranean unfolds in front of you, a wide ribbon of blue stretching toward the horizon, with rooftops of an ancient hilltop village spilling down the hillside beneath your feet. This is where you would start your morning if you owned Casa Santa, coffee in hand, watching the light change over the water while the rest of the world is still asleep.
We have toured a lot of homes on Sicily’s north coast, but Casa Santa stopped us in our tracks. It is a three bedroom, three bathroom stone house priced at just €44,000, sitting steps from a medieval castle ruin in the historic heart of Tusa. Homes like this, move-in ready, with real space and a real sea view, almost never come up at this price, and we wanted to walk you through exactly why this one is special.
A Home Named for Nonna Santina
Casa Santa takes its name from Nonna Santina, the grandmother whose grandchildren grew up inside these very walls. She passed away about a year ago, and we are now working directly with her four sons on the sale.
It is a deeply personal transaction for the family, and you can feel that history the moment you step through the door. The furniture, the shutters, the worn stone stairs, all of it carries the memory of a family that lived a full life here.
Touring the Four Levels of Casa Santa
Casa Santa is built on four levels, connected by stone stairs with comfortable, realistic risers, which is not something you can say about every centro storico (historic center) home in Sicily. The floors are stone throughout, consistent from the ground level all the way up to the terrace.
The Ground Floor and Its Hidden Cantina
The entry level is a single room of about 200 square feet, currently used as a bedroom, with its own separate street entrance. That second entrance is one of the more unusual features of this house, since it opens the door to using this floor as a locked-off studio, a guest suite, or a small rental unit.
Behind it sits an old cantina (cellar), complete with a cistern for municipal water and cold storage space. A sewer line already runs into this room, so there is a real path to adding a three-quarter bath here and creating an independent apartment with its own entrance.
There is one small maintenance item worth mentioning honestly. A section of old plastered rock wall near this entrance has a moisture issue, and a local muratore (mason) quoted us about €2,500 to strip the plaster, expose the original stone, and let the wall breathe again.
The First Floor’s Bedroom and Storage
Up on what Italians call the first floor (our second floor), you will find the main front door, beautifully refinished wooden shutters, and a bedroom with a large armadio (wardrobe) and a generous repostiglio for extra storage. The street view from the window looks straight down onto a quiet lane just below the castle walls, with a small piazza nearby where you would likely park.
The Dining Room with Its Marble Balcony
The third level opens onto the sala da pranzo, or dining room, with a wide balcony finished in Carrara marble and custom ironwork. This floor also holds one of the home’s three full bathrooms, complete with matching toilet, bidet, pedestal sink, and tub, plus a heat pump that handles both heating and cooling.
It is the only installed heat pump in the house right now, though you could add one on each floor for roughly €800 installed. A portable stove rounds out the heating options for cooler months.
The Terrazzo, Ready for Coffee and a Sicilian Sunset
The top floor is where Casa Santa truly earns its place on this list. The kitchen here is fully intact, with a charming porcelain sink and tile you can build around or replace, plus a deep storage closet built beside an old wood-burning oven, perfect for anyone dreaming of baking their own pizza at home.
Just off the kitchen is a laundry sink and another toilet, bringing the total to three bathrooms, which is genuinely rare for a centro storico property of this size. But the real showstopper is through the back room, where a door opens onto the terrazzo (rooftop terrace) that Nonna Santina once filled with flowers.
From up here you look out across centuries-old rooftops toward a castle a thousand years old, past the pyramid-shaped peak of Monte Fermo marking the 38th parallel, and out to a wide, uninterrupted stretch of Mediterranean sea view. Even on a misty day when we filmed, the coastline was unmistakable, and on a clear afternoon this terrace is the kind of spot where you lose track of time entirely.
Property Highlights of Casa Santa
- 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, a rare configuration in Tusa’s historic center
- 146 square meters (about 1,572 square feet) of living space
- Two separate street entrances, offering flexibility for a guest suite or rental unit
- Top-floor terrace with sweeping Mediterranean sea views
- Located steps from the ruins of a medieval hilltop castle
- Original stone floors and refinished chestnut wood shutters throughout
- Wood-burning oven built into the top-floor kitchen storage
- Move-in ready, needing mainly cleaning and light updating rather than renovation
- Furnishings included in the offer, with one piece reserved by the family
- Watch the full property tour
- Featured in Episode 70
- Asking price: €44,000
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.
We invite you to read one buyer’s story about what it’s really like working with us throughout the entire process.
A Rare, Affordable Sea View Home in Tusa
Casa Santa is the kind of property we get emails about constantly. People tell us they have been dreaming of a life in Italy but assumed it meant Tuscany prices, big renovation budgets, and years of waiting.
Here is a move-in ready stone home with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a rooftop terrace looking straight out over the Mediterranean, priced at €44,000. That combination, especially with two separate entrances and real flexibility for guests or rental income, is genuinely hard to find anywhere on Sicily’s north coast.
There is history in these walls too. Nonna Santina’s family trusted us with this sale because they wanted it handled with care, and we intend to do exactly that for whoever takes over her home next.
If mornings with coffee on a terrace above a medieval castle, looking out at the sea, sound like the life you have been imagining, this one is worth a serious look.
