Ruin Flippers! How Our House Hunters International Dream is Coming True AGAIN!

If you are like me, you are hooked on House Hunters International. I watch every episode on Europe and I love trying to figure out which house the buyers  will get and what kind of life they will create there. The episodes on Italy are always my favorite.

Back in 2011, my husband Pete and I made our House Hunters International dream come true by purchasing a medieval house on the top of a 300 year old building in an ancient hill town in Calabria, Southern Italy.

Back then not many people had heard of Calabria. Guidebooks ignored it despite the fact that Calabria boasts of some of the most dramatic landscapes and some of the most stunning beaches on the planet.

So we had very little competition buying our house with its sparking white tile and sweeping view of the sea.

And we have been visiting there as much as we possibly can since we bought it. We love it there and miss it sorely when we are away..

Last Summer I was there with a friend who was looking at purchasing a property there. As we wandered though the piazza toward the back of the village, my eyes fell on a ruin that Pete and I had fallen in love with when we were looking for our house.  It had been on the market then but was too expensive and needed extensive renovations.

This ruin, I had heard, had been purchased and yet here it was, still sitting in a state of partial renovation as it had for the last seven years.

So I asked my friend Antonello (Who you remember from my previous post about the ruined palace in the back of the village) about it.

Antonello told me that a lady had purchased the building with the intention of renovating it but that she had found another house and had moved in. He stated that the lady wanted to sell it and I asked him to find out how much.

In 2011 when we were initially looking to purchase, the property market was strong. People from America and various parts of the UK had come over and purchased holiday homes. Since then the market and gone pretty soft so the price was right and we are now in the process of purchasing the “Pink House” steps away from the piazza.

The house itself looks like a two story house from the front however it is built on a hill and all together it is four stories.

We have figured that if we are judicious with the space, we can create five studio apartments, a communal kitchen, communal laundry facilities and a huge roof terrace with sweeping views of the Pollino mountains and the Mediterranean.

A few months ago we agreed on the price and now we are waiting for the contracts to be translated and the date set with the notaio who will meet with us and go over the contract, line by line to ensure that all T’s are dotted and eyes crossed.

Then it will be ours.

Right now it is looking like early February 2019 and then the renovations can start.

This is going to be a magnificent project. the architect has an amazing sense of aesthetics and loves to make things beautiful.

We are so excited. The village has been changing and gearing up for tourism. The village leaders seem to want this beautiful place to be a destination for tourists rather than a place you stumble upon  if you are lucky.

And Pete and I have a purpose to introduce this amazing place to the people we come into contact with.

The grand opening for the BNB is tentatively set for May 2020. Please stay tuned here for updates, photos and announcements.

I will write more and post more photos when we visit in February.