In the heart of Lipari town, Villa Santa Lucia is an eighteenth-century house surrounded by a large garden, where the Greek and Roman necropolis once extended. It was the headquarter of a Masonic lodge and the home - among others - of the renowned jurist Emanuele Carnevale and the painter Aurora Varvaro. The current owners have decided to open to the public some of the spaces and collections of the house, characterized by uniqueness within the historical heritage of the Aeolian Islands.
Villa Santa Lucia was built in 1714 incorporating a seventeenth-century chapel, still visible today. The ground floor was divided between the cellar and numerous warehouses, while the owners' family has lived on the upper floors for more than ten generations. At the end of the 19th century the villa underwent some transformations: the ancient decorations of the roofs were once replaced by new frescoes with medallions and floral patterns; unfortunately, some of them - such as the flight of ducks in the "Room at noon and west "and the Masonic symbols of the" Camerino to the west and north "- have been lost after the earthquake of 1978; also, new "cementine" flooring have replaced the original majolica floors. During the second half of the 18th century the villa hosted the first Masonic lodge of Lipari. Between the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, it was the home of Emanuele Carnevale, mayor of Lipari and founder of the Third School of Criminal Law, whose rich library is still kept there. Successively, Villa Santa Lucia has been inhabited by his niece Erina De Pasquale, passionate about archeology and painting; and the latter's son Beppe Lo Cascio, architect and collector of majolica, with his wife Aurora Varvaro, painter in the framework of a family tradition that includes the most important exponents of Sicilian futurism, her uncles Giovanni Varvaro and Vittorio Corona.
In late 19th century, a part of the large vineyard that stood around the house was sold by the family to the Cappuccini friars to build the church of Santa Lucia. Another part was expropriated in the second half of the 20th century to build the schools and the adjacent road. Despite this, the garden of Villa Santa Lucia is still the largest green space in the urban center of Lipari, where more of 250 different species among natives and exotics - including rare succulents - are growing together to the "kitchen garden" of the home.
Jazz manouche concert summer 2020
Book launch summer 2020
Art exhibition Renata Conti summer 2020
Winery launch party summer 2020
From 2019, Villa Santa Lucia has opened its spaces to art exhibitions, concerts, conferences, book presentations, artist residencies and other cultural events, also organised in collaboration with the Amaneï association of Salina. In 2023 was also opened the 'Piccolo museo delle maioliche eoliane', a rich collection of majolica tiles housed in a part of the down floor, that can be visited by reservation.
On the down floor of the villa and in the nearby garden, the two studios 'La quiete' and 'La marocchina' provide a comfortable accommodation to single or couple guests. Surrounded by green, just a few minutes far from the harbour and the main street of the town, both are equipped with kitchen, private bathroom, fridge, coffee machine and wi-fi connection, but not the television, as for human resistance it has long since been banned from the perimeter of Villa Santa Lucia.
Three evenings a week you can dine at Villa Santa Lucia as to the "home restaurant" formula, enjoying the evocative spaces of the ancient cellar and the silence of the garden: homemade pasta, fruits and vegetables from the garden, fish from the Aeolian sea, all food at zero kilometer, according to the family traditional cookery revisited in a modern way and accompanied by a careful selection of Aeolian and Sicilian wines. Reservation essential. On request we can also organize cooking classes for small groups or individuals in Italian, English, Spanish and French.
Villa Santa Lucia - Via Prof. Emanuele Carnevale snc, 98055 Lipari (ME) Tel: +39 347 5768609 / +39 349 6524956