Coffee steaming in your hands, the smell of fresh croissants mixing with salty mountain air, and stone streets glowing gold below you in the early light. That is the first thing you notice standing on this rooftop terrace in Reitano, a hill town perched above Sicily’s north coast.
Mountains rise up on one side, and if you turn just right, there is the Mediterranean, sparkling in the distance past the rooftops. This is not a postcard or a rental you have to give back after a week. This is a home you could actually own, wake up in every single day, and one day hand down to your own kids and grandkids.
We walked through this exact scene while touring Casa Arcangelo, a centuries-old palazzo (mansion) in the historic center of Reitano. What we found inside changed how we think about what €60,000 can actually buy in Italy.
The Story Behind Casa Arcangelo and the Augeri Family
This property has belonged to the Augeri family for more than two centuries, long before Italy was even a unified country. Reitano itself was under the lordship of the Roman Column Dukes from 1639 to 1839, and the powerful families of that era were the wealthy landowners who built homes exactly like this one.
In 1934, the original palazzo was divided among the family, and this portion was gifted to the firstborn son, Vittorio, as a wedding present. Today his heir, Arcangelo, is the one selling it, which is where the property gets its name, Casa Arcangelo.
Knowing that history changes the way every room feels as you walk through it. You are not just buying square footage, you are inheriting two hundred years of one family’s story.
Touring the Palazzo, Room by Room
The Grand Entrance and Vaulted Stone Halls
You enter through the main ingresso (entrance), up a staircase with an archway loaded with character and beautiful original stone pavement still in great condition. The stairs themselves are over five feet wide, which tells you something about how grand this home was built to be.
Barrel-vaulted ceilings run through much of the upper level, and the archway continues straight across all the way to the front doors. Antique furniture is included throughout the home, which the seller is open to leaving as part of an offer.
There is also gorgeous antique casework in several rooms, with walls so thick you can genuinely feel the age of the construction when you stand next to them.
Frescoed Bedrooms and Sunlit Balconies
Nearly every room in this palazzo opens onto its own private balcony, and the bedrooms are where the original frescoes really shine. Picture the doors thrown wide open, natural light pouring in under a vaulted ceiling, with faded but intact painted ceiling work overhead.
One large bedroom has some flooring that has sagged over time and would need the tile removed and replaced once the floor structure underneath is addressed. Everything else is original tile, fully intact, paired with woodwork that just needs a bit of restoration to shine again.
In a few spots the plaster has peeled just enough to reveal glimpses of the ancient brick underneath, which would look stunning left exposed once restoration begins.
A Medieval Kitchen and Original Stone Arches
Down on the ground floor is what was once the working kitchen, complete with an old wood-burning oven and open beam ceilings. The walls here are more than a meter thick, all solid stone, unmistakably medieval in feel.
There is a second entrance on this level that is not currently in use but could easily be reopened. Nearby, a fully functional bathroom has custom obscure glass doors, the kind of detail that would cost a fortune to replicate today.
One bedroom on this floor still has its original armadio (wardrobe), and ceilings here run close to nine feet, giving the whole space a surprisingly airy feel for such an old home.
The Roof Terrace and Its Sicilian Sea View
The roof terrace is where this property really sells itself. It runs a couple hundred square feet, with a clear mountain view in one direction and, just past the rooftops, a genuine glimpse of the Mediterranean.
It is not a sweeping, front-and-center sea view, but it is unmistakably there, and on a quiet morning with coffee in hand, that sliver of blue water is more than enough to make you fall for this place. The old roof tiles up here are centuries old, weighted down with stones to withstand a Sirocco (a strong southern wind), and both the old and new sections of roof belong entirely to this home.
Structurally, the roof is in excellent condition, which is a big deal for a building this old. It means whoever buys this palazzo will not be facing the kind of major structural work that scares most people away from historic Italian properties.
Property Highlights of Casa Arcangelo
- Historic palazzo in the medieval center of Reitano, on Sicily’s north coast
- 260 square meters (about 2,800 square feet) of living space
- 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms spread across multiple levels
- Original frescoes and antique woodwork throughout
- Multiple private balconies off nearly every room
- Panoramic roof terrace with mountain and Mediterranean views
- Roof and overall structure in excellent condition, no major structural work needed
- Antique furniture included with the sale
- About a 10-minute drive to the nearest beach and shops
- Watch the full property tour
- Featured in Episode 77
- 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.
Life in Small-Town Reitano
We want to be upfront about who this home is really for. Reitano is a very small town, with one bar, a bakery, a butcher shop, and a tiny grocery store, and that is genuinely about it.
For groceries, restaurants, or the beach, you are looking at about a 10-minute drive. That is the tradeoff for getting this much space, this much history, and this much character for €60,000.
If what you want is a quiet, authentic slice of Sicilian life surrounded by good neighbors, centuries of history in the walls, and mountains on one side with the sea in the distance on the other, this is exactly that kind of town.
Wrapping Up Your Palazzo Dream in Reitano, Sicily
Casa Arcangelo is not the typical €60,000 property we come across in Sicily. Most homes at this price point are ruins that need a full gut renovation before anyone could live in them.
This one is different. The roof is solid, the frescoes are intact, five bedrooms and three bathrooms are already laid out and livable, and there is a rooftop terrace where you can watch the sun set behind the mountains with the Mediterranean glinting in the distance.
It carries two hundred years of one family’s story, and it is ready for the next chapter to be written by someone new. The €60,000 asking price is just a starting point for negotiations, and we are happy to help guide any serious buyer through that process.
If waking up to salt air, frescoed ceilings, and a sliver of sea view sounds like the kind of life you have been dreaming about, Casa Arcangelo might be exactly the door you have been looking for.
