Sleeps: 6
Casa Serena is located close to the historic town of Polizzi Generosa in the north of Sicily, and lies within the boundaries of the Madonie Regional Park. It is perfectly located for exploring the beautiful forested mountains, which rise to almost 2000m (6500ft) – walking paths start at the front gate. From the terrace, it has a stupendous, virtually 180-degree vista of mountain cliffs, the town of Polizzi and rolling hills. Completed in 2010, it was designed by UK architect, Richard Hind of Studio ANA (now teaching at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL). The striking lighting scheme was designed by Carl Gardner of CSG Lighting Consultancy Ltd.
The house sits in four acres of land, with olives and fruit trees, and its construction utilised a pre-existing 10-year old concrete frame structure. Its two-storey exterior form, with traditional terracotta roof, was determined by the Regional Park’s planning regulations, but the interior is anything but conventional.
Hind has added a new entrance lobby and services room to the north-west corner of the house, topped by impressive external steps and an upper terrace. This leads to new French windows from the main bedroom, solving the issue of furniture access and allowing a more compact spiral staircase to be installed inside. In the hands of Studio ANA and an enthusiastic local metalworker, this evolved into the sculptural centrepiece of the house. The custom-designed staircase is made in white-painted, plaster-rendered steel and has open-tread steps in poured grey resin – each one crosslit by an individual LED.
The ground floor is virtually open-plan, with the living room, dining room and kitchen wrapping around the staircase. The living room and dining room have full-height folding glass doors, so the whole house can be opened up to the 20m-long terrace in warm weather. A planted pergola will provide effective solar shading, while allowing winter sun to warm the floor slab. At the western end there is an outside plunge-pool/ water feature with underwater lighting.
The interior has all-white walls, pale grey woodwork and polished concrete finish ceramic floor tiles. However, these are accented by vibrant colour contrasts, such as the red-lacquered kitchen units, furniture by Moroso, Zanotta and Kartell – and a growing collection of modern art. The lighting designer also selected dramatic, colourful lighting pieces by companies such as Arteluce, Fabbian and Oligo. Translucent coloured tables and chairs also take advantage of the strong sunlight – and the artificial lighting.
The elevation here is 850m (around 2800 feet) which means the house avoids the scorching summer temperatures of the coast. But it also makes it is colder in winter, with spells of snow, so the house has underfloor heating and extensive Knauf insulation on the outside walls and within the roof. A compact, highly efficient wood-burning stove can also be used.
Transport Links: Both Palermo airport (Easyjet from Gatwick and Ryanair Stanstead) and Catania airport (Easyjet from Gatwick and British Airways from Heathrow) are about 90-100 minutes by car, almost all on autostrada.
Rental Prices:
Prices according to month of start date.
Low season: January - April £900 per week
Mid-season: May - June £1100 per week
High season: July - August £1350 per week
Mid-season: Sept - Oct £1100 per week
Low season Nov - December £900 per week
(not including Christmas week – High season rates apply)
Except in exceptional circumstances, all bookings are for full weeks, from Saturday to Saturday.
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