A private house that opens for you alone, long enough to understand how it was lived in and who kept it standing. And, if you wish, a glass at the end, where the stone holds the cool.
A Sicilian dimora storica is not what the English phrase “historic house” usually brings to mind. These are not properties held by a national trust or a foundation. They are private houses, most of them still owned — and often still lived in — by the families whose names they carry, and the great majority of them never open to the public at all.
The few that do open are usually visited at speed: a circuit of the reception rooms, a handful of dates, the next group waiting at your shoulder. But the interest of a house like this does not lie in the list of its rooms. It lies in who lived there, in what was kept and in what was let go.
Inside a Sicilian noble house is a private visit arranged on request, built around the life of the house: the family that passed through it, the decisions taken during restoration, the rooms the residence is able to open on the day. The visit is reserved for your own party, the programme is agreed in advance, and together with the tasting it takes about two hours.
The experience is currently available at Palazzo Spadaro Libertini, in Caltagirone, one of the historic houses Sicily Luxury follows. Sicily Luxury takes your request to the owners and confirms the date, the number of guests and the accessible rooms before anything is agreed.
Two hours inside a house that is still lived in
The programme is built case by case. These are the four movements it is set around.
The house, with a guide of your own
Not a group tour you join: someone accompanying your party alone, with time to stop where the conversation leads and to give a second look to whatever deserves one.
The family and its choices
Who bought, who inherited, who decided to rebuild and who decided to leave things as they stood. Many Sicilian noble houses were sold, divided among heirs or turned into something else during the last century; a residence still held by the same family can tell that story precisely, because it is its own.
The conservation work
What was restored, what was consolidated and what was deliberately left untouched. It is the least narrated part of a historic house, and it is the part that explains why certain rooms have reached us at all — in a region where earthquakes, war damage and a century of emigration decided what survived.
The pace is yours
Two hours, but with no one behind you: your party sets the rhythm. You stop where the conversation leads, you ask questions, and you finish sitting down rather than at the door.
Palazzo Spadaro Libertini, in Caltagirone
Caltagirone is an inland town in the province of Catania, in the south-eastern corner of Sicily — away from the coastal road most visitors follow between Taormina and Syracuse, and reached by car. It has been a ceramics town for centuries, and it belongs to the group of late Baroque towns of the Val di Noto listed by UNESCO: places rebuilt almost entirely after the earthquake of 1693 destroyed them. That is why the architecture here looks of a piece. It was not accumulated over centuries; it was decided within a few decades.
The residence is a private house at the top of the old town, with the great ceramic-tiled staircase of Santa Maria del Monte passing alongside it and two entrances that face two different worlds: one on the street, one on the alleyways. On the main floor are the State Rooms; below and behind, a far older structure of stone and vaults.
What makes it worth a longer visit is the layering. The oldest structure, the eighteenth-century rebuilding, the nineteenth-century furnishings and the recent conservation work all coexist in the same house, and the joins are still visible to the naked eye — if someone points them out to you. The rooms still hold their original damasks and silks.
This is the world of Lampedusa's The Leopard seen from the inside and without the novel — not a set, not a museum, but a house that has been continuously maintained, and where the maintenance is part of the story.
A glass at the end of the visit
In the oldest part of the house, the part built of stone, it stays cool in summer. That is where it makes sense to stop when the visit ends.
A tasting inside the house — Wine & Lounge, as the residence calls it: a few wines, explained, and bread from a bakery in the town. It is not a buffet: it is a table, in a chosen room, at the end of the visit.
Etna is an appellation grown on the slopes of an active volcano, on vineyards that the rules place roughly between 400 and 1,000 metres of altitude. Wines, quantities and setting are defined at proposal stage. The tasting is not automatically included in the visit: it is an addition, and it has to be requested.
This is not the scheduled guided tour
Palazzo Spadaro Libertini also opens on fixed dates, with guided tours that are open to the public, short and on a set route: for many travellers that is the right choice. Times, prices, languages and booking all live on a single page, and that is where they should be checked — the guided tour of the State Rooms.
Party, date, programme
There you enter alongside other visitors, on a route that is the same for everyone and on a date already fixed. Here the party is made up of your guests only, the date is agreed, and with the date the emphasis of the visit: the furnishings, the conservation, the collections, the family.
Events are something else again
Reception dinners, concerts, exhibitions, conferences and filming are arranged separately, under their own terms and with their own spaces. This experience does not replace them; if that is what you need, say so in your enquiry and it will be handled as a different request.
Useful to know before you enquire
It is a private house, not a visitor attraction
Every date is agreed with the owners, and availability depends on the calendar of the house. You cannot simply turn up: this opening exists because it has been arranged.
Not every room opens every time
Restoration work, conservation conditions or private use may close part of the house. The rooms that will actually be accessible are set out in the proposal, not before.
Photography and filming are agreed in advance
The terms are confirmed with the owners together with the visit. Professional filming, drones and commercial use of the images require a separate agreement.
The route has stairs and changes of level
The older rooms sit at different heights and are reached on foot, as they are in most houses of this age, which were built long before lifts. Tell us about any mobility requirements: the route can be adapted, within the limits of the building itself.
What the experience can include
Unless stated otherwise, the following are not included: transfers, accommodation, catering other than what has been agreed, photographic services and admission to other sites in Caltagirone.
Who it is for
How the visit takes shape
Tell us your date
Your date, the number of guests, the language, and whether the tasting at the end interests you.
We check with the house
The request goes to the owners, who confirm the date, the rooms and the conditions.
A proposal made for you
You receive a solution with the duration, an indicative programme, the services included, the conditions and a dedicated quotation.
Confirming the details
Once approved: the time, the entrance to use, the contacts and the practical information for the day of the visit.
Request a private opening
Tell us the date, the number of guests and the language you would like the visit to be in. If you want the tasting at the end, say so. And if you have another part of Sicily in mind, tell us: houses are considered case by case.
Alternatively, contact us directly
A few clarifications
What language is the visit in?
Tell us in your enquiry and it is confirmed together with the date. It is not guaranteed automatically, and it can influence which day works: the visit is given by the house, not by an agency with interpreters on call.
How much does it cost?
It depends on the date, the number of guests, the duration and the rooms that open: the quotation comes with the proposal, once the house has confirmed. The prices of the scheduled guided tour are a different matter and are set out on its own page.
Is the tasting included?
No, it is an addition and has to be requested. Wines, accompaniment and setting are defined at proposal stage together with the owners.
Can it be booked for the same day?
No: this is a private house, the opening requires notice and the date has to be confirmed with the owners. If your travel dates are already fixed, enquire before you arrive in Sicily rather than once you are there.
Around the house
Caltagirone
The staircase, the ceramic workshops, the Baroque of the rebuilding: half a day on foot, around the visit. Read the itinerary →
Eastern Sicily
How Caltagirone fits into a route through the eastern side of the island, and what is worth the inland detour. Read the itinerary →
A house of this kind is not told in an hour.
It is told sitting down, once the visit is over.
