A Short History
Villa Ricevuto was built in the early 1900s by Bartolo (Lilo in Sicilian) Ricevuto, a wealthy Trapani businessman, as a summer residence for his family.
The Ricevuto family were members of the new merchant class which emerged in Sicily in the 19th century. The family originally made their money from the salt pans in the shallow waters of the seas between Trapani and Marsala.
Like many other wealthy families in West Sicily they chose Valderice (then known as Paparella meaning “Little Duck” in Sicilian) as the site for their summer home. At the time the Villa was built Paparella was a collection of similar, large villas scattered over the landscape amongst an otherwise agricultural community.
The Garden
Lilo’s idea for the garden was to create a kind of rustic idyll for the family living in contact with local people and sharing local customs and traditions. So part of the garden was landscaped as a park with stairways, paths, flowers and exotic plants, whilst the remainder was devoted to traditional Sicilian crops such as vines, olives, vegetables, oranges, lemons and other fruit. There was no public water supply, so water from the winter rains was collected from the roof and stored in a large tank under the house. In effect, the Villa was a sustainable self-sufficient community.
Carla Arcadi
Amongst the other families of Paparella were the Arcadi family. They were close neighbours and the children of the two families used to spend their summers together, now in one garden, then in the other. So it was in the garden of the Villa that Carla Arcadi (1924-2014) executed some of her earliest works before moving to Rome to become one of the most imporant Italian painters of the 20th century and a leading figure in the Italian feminist movement.
WW II
During the Second World War the German Army requisitioned the Villa as their local headquarters. The Villa was an obvious choice because of its strategic position high above Valderice with an uninterrupted view of the Tyrrhenian Sea from Mount Cofano in the East to Pizzolungo in the West. The Germans left the house in a hurry when the Allies landed in July 1943, leaving behind gas marks, uniforms and fuel cans which became playthings for the children of the family and their friends after the War.
After the War
During the 1950s and 60s life returned to normal and the Ricevuto family returned to the Villa in the Summer months. And so things continued until the death of Avvocato Pietro Ricevuto in 1998, when the cost of maintaining the proerty and its gardens became too much and the family decided to put the Villa up for sale. It was difficult to find a buyer willing to take on the challenge and the Villa remained on the market for nearly 20 years until purchased by the current owner in 2018.
