Marsala, Trapani, Sicily, Italy

There are places where time leaves a special imprint. Villa Santa Venera alla Badia is one of them. It is an ancient late-eighteenth-century noble residence, set amid the countryside of Marsala, with a horizon embracing the sea and the islands. Its history can still be read in the architecture, the gardens and the stories passed down from generation to generation.

The Origins

The district takes its name from what once stood here: the Badia, a small monastery of Olivetan monks. At the end of the eighteenth century, the monks moved to the little church on the hill, and a noble Marsala family built the villa on the remains of the monastery. Evidence of those origins survives in the walls, more than one metre thick and still visible in part of the building. They keep the house cool in summer and tell its long history better than any document.

The villa was not built as an agricultural residence, but as a holiday home: the family gathered there at the end of the harvest and grape harvest on its estates. Over the generations, it passed several times through the female line and became the summer residence of other noble Marsala families. Through a marriage, it eventually returned to the founding family, which has occupied it for six generations. The family coat of arms still adorns the mantelpiece in the drawing room.

The great events of history have also passed through here. During the Second World War, the villa was requisitioned to accommodate the officers of the Stagnone seaplane station, the seaplane base overlooking the lagoon.

The Villa

Arranged over two levels and covering 475 sq m, the villa retains spacious, distinct rooms designed for family life, entertaining and conviviality.

The ground floor comprises a sitting room, living room, study and bathroom. There is also a large room with glazed walls and a spacious dining room with evocative decorated groin vaults.

The upper floor contains four large bedrooms, two bathrooms, a walk-in wardrobe and a large dressing room. From one of the bedrooms, the view extends across the countryside, sea and islands in one extraordinary panorama.

The Battlemented Tower

The garden is crowned by an ancient Germanic-style battlemented tower, a tribute to the origins of the wife of one of the ancestors. Its owner, a doctor, used it as his consulting room. When he received patients, he raised a flag to alert the neighbourhood. Today, the tower is an independent 40 sq m annexe with a kitchenette, sleeping area and bathroom, ideal for guests.

The Guest House

This building once housed the caretakers' quarters on one side and the stables for the horses that pulled the baron's carriage on the other. Today, the 122 sq m guest house offers a living area with kitchenette, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It is an independent solution for family and guests, true to the residence's tradition of hospitality.

The Garden

The land retains the traditional distinction between the family kitchen garden and orchard and the pleasure garden. Nothing was produced here for trade, but for the table: oil, preserves and wine.

An avenue of olive trees leads to the villa, flanking four quadrants arranged around a circle of centuries-old palms. Three were devoted to citrus trees, vines and olive trees; the fourth contained a basin and a well for irrigation. The citrus grove and olive grove remain in place, while the vineyard has made way for a large guest car park.

From the palm roundabout, an avenue leads to an octagonal basin, now converted into a small hydrotherapy pool. The formal garden itself is a network of paths through the greenery, with a basin and dominated by a two-hundred-year-old araucaria.

A Residence to Be Passed Down

The villa, tower, guest house and garden form a unified narrative. They bear witness to a way of living in which house, garden and countryside were one world. After being cherished for more than two centuries as a place of return and hospitality, Villa Santa Venera is now opening its doors to a new family, ready to write its next chapter.