Step through a low wooden door in the historic center of Tusa, Sicily, and your hand lands on stone that has been there for centuries. The floor still holds the hush of what was once a mule stall, back when families and animals shared the same single room. Somewhere above you, through three raw floors of barrel ceilings, there is a roof that does not exist yet, and that roof is already promising a sweeping, wide open Sicilian sea view that you would build with your own two hands.
This is Casa Maria Rosa, and at €20,000 it is less a finished house and more an invitation. It is stone, structure, and potential, sitting in a hilltop town so many of you have already fallen for. We get requests for more Tusa tours constantly, so we went back, and this one is for anyone who wants an affordable foothold in Sicily they can shape slowly, on their own schedule and their own budget.
Why We Keep Coming Back to Tusa
Tusa sits up high, and that elevation is the whole reason people love it. From up here you get mountain views, sea views, and on a clear day, views out toward the Aeolian Islands.
It is also a genuinely ancient town, which is why the building stock looks the way it does. Centuries ago, these homes were a single stone floor shared by a family and their animals.
Over generations, families built upward, adding brick floors on top of the original stone base as money and materials allowed. The fact that a stone ground floor can carry two or three additional floors on top of it says a lot about how solidly these old homes were built in the first place.
The Ground Floor’s Original Stone and Its Barrel Ceiling
The ground floor is the oldest part of Casa Maria Rosa, and it shows. Part of the original stone wall is exposed, while the rest was rebuilt in brick at some point over the centuries, patched in where the old stone had broken away.
Right now, plaster is peeling off the old stone wall because the wall cannot breathe behind it. Strip that plaster back with a hammer drill, a relatively fast job, clean the stone, and seal it with a few coats of clear acrylic, and you are left with a genuinely gorgeous stone room for what we estimated at roughly €1,500 to €3,000 in labor.
That wall runs about 16 square meters (roughly 170 square feet), so this is not a massive undertaking. Overhead, the barrel ceiling just needs a coat of white or satin plaster to bounce light around a room that will otherwise be dominated by dark stone.
The Stairwell’s Reinforced Concrete Bones
One of the best surprises in this house is structural. The stairs are already reinforced concrete, which means you are not rebuilding them, just finishing on top with stone or tile.
A dividing wall near the stairs currently makes the entry feel cramped, and we would take it down to open the whole space up. That also frees room in the back for a small powder room right off the entrance, so you have a bathroom before you even head upstairs.
Every floor already has a sewer line run through it, which is a quiet but important detail. It means you could put a toilet and sink on each level without major new plumbing work.
The First Floor Room and Its Balcony Over the Stone Streets
The first floor room itself is modest, probably no more than about 130 square feet, but it opens onto a balcony overlooking the old stone street below. Look down and you will see the kind of worn stone paving that makes these hill towns so photogenic.
The location could not be more convenient. You are around the corner from the pharmacy, a few steps from small markets and a butcher shop, and the produce truck still comes through selling verdura (fresh produce) to the town’s 3,200 residents.
The old wooden doors on this floor are worth saving. We have already told the sellers we would like to keep them as part of any offer, then simply restore them rather than replace them.
The Top Floor’s Wood Oven and Its Future Sea View Roof Terrace
Climb to the top floor and you are standing under another barrel ceiling, with a second balcony looking out over the mountains. There is no sea view from this level yet, but there is history here in the form of an old wood-burning oven built into the wall.
The oven would need to go, but the floor above it is solid, carried on steel I-beams. We spoke with the geometra (the licensed Italian building surveyor who handles permits and structural sign-off) about replacing the roof section entirely and raising the wall height to create a proper roof terrace.
That terrace would face east-southeast, which means soft morning sun without getting cooked in the afternoon heat. Once that roof goes up, this is where the house finally delivers its real payoff, open sky, rooftops falling away below you, and the sea stretching out past the edge of town.
We would run the connection from the top room out to that terrace in full glass, so the view becomes part of daily life rather than something you have to go looking for. It is the kind of vantage point that turns a basic renovation project into a home people dream about.
Property Highlights of Casa Maria Rosa
- Located in the historic center of Tusa, Sicily, walking distance to the pharmacy, markets, butcher shop, and cafes
- Original stone walls on the ground floor, ready to be exposed and sealed for a true stone-room finish
- Characteristic barrel ceilings on three levels
- Reinforced concrete stairwell already in place, no structural rebuild needed there
- Sewer lines already run to every floor, simplifying future bathroom additions
- Balcony off the first floor overlooking the town’s old stone streets
- Top floor with a wood oven and a roof section the geometra confirmed can support a new rooftop terrace
- East-southeast facing terrace potential for morning sun and sweeping sea views over Tusa
- Sold directly by the two sisters who inherited the home from their grandmother
- Watch the full property tour
- Featured in Episode 92
- Asking price: €20,000
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 €20,000 Stone Canvas Worth Claiming in Tusa
Casa Maria Rosa is not a finished house, and that is exactly the point. For €20,000, you are buying solid stone and concrete bones, a historic center address, and the rare kind of roof terrace potential that most houses this cheap simply do not have.
Renovations like this do not have to happen overnight. Get in at a price this low and you have the breathing room to do the work in stages, over a five year window if that is what your budget needs.
We always tell people to enjoy that journey rather than rush it, because the end result, a stone-walled home with a rooftop looking out toward the Sicilian sea, is worth the wait. Prices in towns like Tusa are inching upward as more foreign buyers discover them.
If this particular project is not quite your fit, that is alright. Tell us what you are picturing for your own life in Sicily, and we will keep looking until we find the right stone walls for you.
