Italian 'ghost town' for sale

Calsazio offers 12 houses for $389,000, through Marco Bussone.

The only moment of glory the mountaintop fortress Rocca Calascio has had in centuries of oblivion came in 1985, when it served as the set for the fantasy film Ladyhawke. It then went back to being a sleepy ghost town, isolated among the peaks of central Italy's rugged Apennine hills in the Abruzzi region.

It is one of 20,000 so-called "sleeping beauties" that dot the country, abandoned following earthquakes and mass emigration flows, when locals fled to cities in search of a better life. But these lost hamlets are now being brought back from the grave by holidaymakers with a soft spot for history.

Rocca Calascio is one of 20,000 so-called "sleeping beauties" that dot Italy.

In Calascio, where silence reigns and the population is mostly cats, dogs and sheep, €20,000 (£17,600) will buy you a crumbling 540 sq ft stone dwelling with a terrace and patio, for sale through Sextantio Real Estate (0039 0862 899112). With an overall investment of €80,000 to €100,000, you could restyle it into a proper summer cottage.

"Foreigners are the ones most interested in recovering dwellings in ancient, forgotten towns because it's like living in a real medieval world frozen in time, full of history and traditions," says architect Edoardo Carboni, a local estate agent who has researched the appeal ghost hamlets have to foreign investors.

Calascio's pure air and breathtaking scenery are also luring tourists. The town, founded by the Normans in the middle ages, boasts a spooky fortress that is open to the public. Now a heap of broken stones, during the Renaissance it was part of a defensive system of watch towers used by the Medici to fend off enemy attacks.

From this mountain peak, the ruthless lords of Florence could control all of central Italy. Calascio's grandeur ended when the fortress was rocked by a violent earthquake in 1703, sending locals running for their lives.

"Abandoned hilltop towns are like tiny, secret Pompeiis we'd all like to own a slice of, and such desire is stronger among tourists who visit for the first time and are spellbound," says Carboni.

And the magic has financial benefits, too; restyled homes such as these can earn up to €800 per week in rent during high summer season. If one day you come to sell it, the value of a restored building could have risen by 300 per cent.

Carboni has just finished restructuring Il Pagliaio (the Haystack), a 1,185 sq ft peasant house in the nearby village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, a former ghost town that is now getting a makeover by local investors.

The two-floor cottage has been totally refurbished, with anti-seismic technology, a fully equipped kitchen and a patio at the entrance.

The medieval features have been preserved with wooden beam ceilings, old furniture, stone pavements and a large fireplace. It can be split into two separate apartments, and is for sale at €180,000 through Sextantio Real Estate.

So the house doesn't remain empty while overseas owners are away, Sextantio will rent it out as part of its resort hotel offering, taking 20 per cent of the booking revenues. In August, rooms at the hotel can cost up to €400 per night.

"This way the property is always 'alive' and never falls into oblivion, locked shut for months with the risk of dampness, dust and mold," says Carboni. "When the owners return, they'll find everything tidy and clean as if it were a hotel."

Il Pagliaio is located in a strategic position: right at the entrance of Santo Stefano with great valley views, surrounded by green fields and gentle rolling hills where shepherds lead their herds. The medieval town, a maze of narrow cobbled streets, vaults and arches with protruding gargoyles, boasts a collapsed Medici tower, an old brothel and a witch lair that have also been renovated.

Santo Stefano rose from the ashes of a former Roman camp where outlaws were imprisoned, and became a wealthy textile hub during the Renaissance. Its precious type of wool, carfagna, was previously exported across Europe. When the sheep-based economy came to an end in the 1800s, locals migrated to Canada, leaving the town empty.

Today, thanks to a bevy of projects renovating old dwellings soon to be placed on the market, the historic town has been handed another life. For those with a bigger budget, entire ghost towns can be purchased for less than the price of a family home on the outskirts of London.

The old abandoned hamlet of Frattura Vecchia di Scanno in Abruzzi, overlooking a heart-shaped lake, can be bought for €1.5million through Sextantio. The one-acre plot includes 70 dilapidated dwellings of about 540 sq ft each.

There are dusty wine canteens, barns, artisan shops, a medieval stone fountain and a tiny chapel. A few stone roads have been preserved, covered in vegetation.

"This is the ideal solution for investors wanting to turn the place into an exclusive resort, while keeping a few cottages to themselves," suggests Carboni.

You don't even need to break a million to get your hands on a whole village. In the northern region of Piedmont, close to the royal city of Turin, three tiny ghost towns have been placed on the market.

The hamlet of Lunella has six dwellings on sale for a total of €350,000, and one house has already been restyled. Calsazio offers 12 houses for €250,000, and tiny Gilli has eight properties for €180,000. All are with Marco Bussone (0039 3498 599339).

They have the dark tile roofs typical of mountain huts and walls with multi-coloured bricks, and are located in a sleepy valley close to historical cities, the Alps and Liguria's warm shores. The towns may need a spot of work, but there's little else that can offer such a secret retreat away from the crowds.