When Jonathan Smith saw an abandoned villa for sale in Italy, which hadn’t been lived in for 20 years, he jumped at the chance to take on a huge renovation for a new life away from the UK
A man who was sick of living in the UK has revealed exactly how he made his dream into a reality by upping sticks to Italy.
Jonathan Smith, 38, from near Manchester, always dreamt of owning a holiday home, but didn’t think it was realistic until much later in life. But when he started looking for properties in Europe online, his mindset quickly shifted.
“I was fed up with the UK. I felt like I was in a rat race, the cost of living is so expensive and the crime. So I started looking online, and I was surprised how cheap you can buy properties abroad for,” Jonathan told the Mirror.
With a fresh spring in his step, he first looked at buying a property in Greece, before Sicily in Italy caught his attention. “It felt really mysterious because I never really heard anyone talk about Sicily, or know anyone who’s been there. The more I looked into it, the more I was sold on the idea.”
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Jonathan wanted somewhere that wasn’t overrun with tourists but offered an authentic charm, where locals reside. This led him to find a rural villa, set among grape vines and citrus trees, in the seaside town of Mazara del Vallo, on the west coast of Sicily.
He purchased the historic property around a year ago. It had been abandoned for 20 years and had been on the market for five years at €100,000 (£86,000).
In the hopes of securing a good deal, he contacted the estate agent with an offer of €20,000 (£17,000), and was surprised when they came back saying he could have the villa for a mere €21,500, around £18,000.
Despite the property needing extensive work and guttering, Jonathan was left stunned at the price he secured for the sprawling detached villa overflowing with character in Sicily. “It’s insane and it’s a big detached villa – you wouldn’t be able to get a garage for that in Manchester,” he said.
But after he collected the keys, just five weeks later, reality hit. He recalled: “Walking back inside for the first time since the viewing, the sheer scale of the work ahead hit me like a ton of bricks. That was the moment I thought, ‘Have I completely lost the plot?’
“I was buying a shell in a sense. All the furniture and belongings of the previous owners from 20 years ago were still in the villa. It was rodent-infested, and it was horrible and old. Everything needed to be rebuilt and redone, from the windows to the floor, water pipes and electricity – literally everything.”
But that didn’t stop Jonathan, who worked in the hospitality industry, from taking on his dream. He learnt as he went, “learning from mistakes” and watching YouTube DIY videos in a bid to transform the abandoned villa into a welcoming family home.
However, it didn’t come without its challenges, including trying to find supplies and materials for every project in a new country – not to mention the language barrier. “It’s been a massive learning curve,” Jonathan told us.
“In the UK, you can Google it and you’ll instantly find what you want, but you can’t do that out there. Most don’t have a website, and suppliers don’t have big signs for B&Q like we do in the UK. It’s a lot of driving around, finding what I need.”
The renovation has even come with some scary moments, as he shared: “Clearing out the villa at the start was nerve-racking. Every time a lizard darted past, I jumped out of my skin, thinking it was a rat. Luckily, some of it was caught on camera and could easily pass for ‘You’ve Been Framed’.
“Another questionable decision was lifting a massive oak beam into the ceiling late at night on my own. In hindsight, one slip and I could have been flattened! And of course, I’ll never forget my first close encounter with a snake, easily over a metre long.”
There have even been some mishaps when it comes to Italian culture. “Adjusting to Italian customs has been comedy gold at times. In Sicily, it’s normal to greet friends with a hug and a kiss, but back in the UK, my mates would think I’d gone mad.
“At one point I even Googled ‘Which side do you lean first?’ after a couple of very close calls where I nearly kissed my neighbour square on the lips.”
Despite the setbacks while taking on a full renovation, Jonathan said he feels “fully relaxed” and that it’s been “really rewarding”. He’s also been learning Italian, “slowly but surely”, and can “just about get by” with the help of Google translate.
So far, he’s completed all the electrics through the villa, built a garden terrace, fixed the water well in the garden, and planted mango, olive and avocado trees. “It didn’t have a gas, water or electric supply or drainage systems, so I’ve had to get my head around all of that,” he shared.
“For the past year, there haven’t been any massive visual jobs – it’s been a lot of little jobs to get to the stage where it can get plastered. But it’ll all start coming together in the next few months”.
And when it comes to the interiors, he said: “It’s going to have some modern features but also some nice character from the original features. Hopefully, we’ll get a nice balance between the two.”
As the renovation is ongoing, Jonathan spends 80 per cent of his time in Italy taking on whatever work needs doing at the villa, but often returns to the UK to see his partner and two sons. His family will also fly out to meet him in Italy during the school holidays, which he says his six-year-old son “absolutely loves”.
“He just loves being outside, pottering around, climbing the trees, helping out and being a general kid. It’s absolutely lovely to see”, he said. While his other son, who is 13-years-old, is more focused on his friends, the family are planning to make a big move out to Italy to live in the villa once it’s habitable, hopefully by the end of the year.
“We’re going to move out there permanently, that’s why I’ve been spending as much time out there as possible”, he shared. “The kids are going to enrol in schools out there, it’s so exciting and it’s a right adventure.”
Jonathan said that one of the major reasons to move to Italy was his children’s exposure to screen time. He shared: “Kids in the UK are always on their devices all the time, but in Italy, it’s not the case at all. When my lads are out there, they’re not on the devices because there’s so much to do. Being outdoors in the nice weather, going to the beach and the different parks or playgrounds.”
During the renovation, Jonathan has documented every high, low, mishap, challenge, achievement, and progress on his YouTube channel, Operation Sicily. Despite being something he’s never done before, the dad has accumulated over 38K subscribers on his channel (@OperationSicily) and said he wanted to document the journey for his children.
You can find out more about Jonathan’s villa renovation on his website here. He also told us: “If I can do it, with no building experience, anyone can.”
