Thanks to its turquoise coast and luxurious villas, the peninsula of Monte Argentario, a two-hour drive north of Rome, has long been a favourite haunt of the Italian elite.
They have built their homes by the sea or in the rugged headlands dotted with crumbling forts and towers built by the Spanish kings who ruled the area 400 years ago. Inland, the headland is covered in pine and oak forests and wild maquis vegetation, interrupted only by stepped olive groves and vineyards.
Outside August, its beaches are almost deserted, while its two ports — Porto Santo Stefano, with its thriving fishing industry, and the smaller, more upmarket Porto Ercole — are relaxed and unpretentious places, with enough restaurants and bars to provide some atmosphere in the evenings. No wonder the area has remained one of Italy’s best-kept secrets.
For foreigners, even those who can afford the prices that go with its exclusivity, finding a property in Argentario is rather like accessing some of its secluded natural beaches: you need energy and know-how.
Now, however, some of the original Italian pioneers, who turned the farmhouses built into the rocks into luxury holiday homes 30 years ago, are starting to sell.
Despite their £650,000-plus price tags, many of the pine-cloaked villas that cling to the rugged slopes can be reached only after a hair-raising drive up steep, potholed roads. There is even a 1.8 mile break in the south of the panoramic road that follows the peninsula’s coast, which helps curb the amount of traffic and day-tripping tourists.
“You are really in Italy when you are here,” says Judith Lanyi, a Hungarian-born estate agent, from the Case e Castelli agency, who has been selling houses in Argentario for more than 20 years.
“It is not a place where every second person is speaking English or German, like other parts of Tuscany. One villa in Le Cannelle, in the south of the peninsula, is still known locally as the English Farmhouse because it used to be owned by an English couple.”
Julie and Peter Wilson from East Sussex, both in their forties, bought their five-bedroom villa five years ago after Peter, a businessman, spotted Argentario out of the window of a plane during a flight from London to Rome.
When the couple first inquired about buying there, they were told it was impossible for outsiders as all properties changed hands privately. So they began their search for a holiday home in mainland Tuscany instead.
“All the properties we were shown were very landlocked,” says Julie, who has four teenage children. “Frankly, I think the mainland Tuscany vistas are pretty when you first see them, but are actually boring.
“The view of the sea on the other hand changes all the time. And the sunsets in Argentario are just gorgeous.”
With the help of Lanyi, the couple found a property for about £600,000 at Cala Grande, a four-mile drive west of Santo Stefano. It is now valued at more than twice that.
Views from all over the peninsula are indeed spectacular — and include the mysterious Montecristo, a small island halfway between Corsica and mainland Italy where Alexandre Dumas, the French writer, had his fictional count imprisoned.
Anyone with at least €10m (£6.75m) to spare might consider buying Elefante Felice (the Happy Elephant), built by the late Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in 1960.
The 24-room villa, with its own pool and guesthouse, is perched on a cliff just outside Porto Ercole. Hidden behind a closed gate, it is visible only from the sea and, according to Christie’s Great Estates, which is marketing the property, is awaiting the creative touch of a new owner. “We are trying to sell it discreetly, looking around to find the right buyer,” says Joachim Wrang-Widen, European director of real estate.
The local bars are awash with rumours as to who that buyer will be in a place that already has its fair share of colourful millionaires. Cesare Previti, the former Italian defence minister and long-time aide to Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, has an imposing villa on a rocky headland at Cala Grande. He is under house arrest after being found guilty of bribery.
The £13.5m, castle-like Villa Feltrinelli on the next headland along belongs to Stefano Ricucci, a financier, and his blonde television celebrity wife, Anna Falchi. Ricucci, a former dental technician, spent August there after a brief spell in jail, accused of insider trading.
Locals have jokingly nicknamed the area Cala Galera, or Prison Beach.
That should not put off buyers, though. Indeed, the presence of so many important people means security is assured and the local crime rate is almost zero.
“I’ve seen a Porsche with the door open and the keys in the ignition parked in Porto Santo Stefano. The driver had just left it there while he went to buy an ice cream,” says Julie.
Victor Emmanuel of Savoy, the son of the last king of Italy, who was allowed back into the country after 60 years in exile, also holidayed in Argentario this summer. As an indication of the unpretentiousness of the place, despite the wealth of its residents, he, his wife and three staff travelled around in a cramped Fiat Panda.
Indeed, ever since Hollywood stars, including Charlie Chaplin, discovered the elegant, five-star Il Pellicano hotel at Porto Ercole in the 1960s, Argentario has been a favourite stop-off for celebrities, more recently the mega-yachting crowd — singer Rod Stewart and actors Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are among those to have landed at Santo Stefano this year.
Despite the high price of the villas and the fact that many are accessible only by 4WD, a handful of unconverted farmhouses remain. Count on paying £200,000-£340,000 for a small, 60sq m property, but the difficult terrain means renovation costs will be high and planning permission is hard to obtain. A better option for those with a more modest budget is to buy in one of the ports. A studio apartment in Santo Stefano recently sold for £75,000; expect to pay about £400,000 for an apartment in a gated residence with a sea view.
Justine Gwendolyne, 34, an actress from Battersea, southwest London, owns a one-bed maisonette in the old town of Porto Ercole, perched on a cliff above the port. It is here, in a small church owned by a Roman family, that Caravaggio, the celebrated late-Renaissance painter, is buried, having fled Naples and then Rome by boat after killing a man in a fight.
Gwendolyne’s grandmother used to own a flat in Porto Ercole, and she had spent holidays there for years before she found the home of her dreams two years ago. She paid £150,000 for it and reckons it has since doubled in value.
Gwendolyne comes to Argentario in June and September, renting out the apartment in high season through the website Owners Direct (www.ownersdirect.co.uk) for £400 a week. The more up-market villas rent out for much more: a six- or seven-bedroom property with a pool could command 10 times as much in high season.
“I was really lucky to get my place,” says Gwendolyne. “Properties don’t come up often in the old town, and when they do they get snapped up immediately. It helped that I didn’t hesitate when I saw it.”
Christie’s Great Estates, 020 7389 2551, www.christiesgreatestates.com
On the market
The four-bed Villa del Sole has two separate flats and 300sq m of cliffside terrace. In a gated community on the coast midway between Porto Ercole and Santo Stefano, it has direct access to the beach and is for sale for £4.9m. Contact Dimore Italiane on 020 8246 6123
Nearly 400m above sea level, this three-bedroom villa is in Cala Moresca, south of Cala Grande. It has two 35sq m outhouses, a pool and 20 acres of land, and is for sale for £810,000. Contact the owner, Cristina Fantauzzi, on 00 39 333 422 5211
Ten minutes from the beach in Cala Grande, with views over Elba, the sea and vineyards, this seven-bed house with a large swimming pool and stepped terraces is on the market for £1.5m. Contact Judith Lanyi, 00 39 328 761 5139, www.case-castelli.it
Just over a mile from Santo Stefano, Casale il Sorbo is a modernised three-bed, 18th-century farmhouse. Set in 15 acres, it has its own well and original stone terraces. It is on the market for £810,000 with Gabbiano estate agency, 00 39 056 481 3169
