A house in sicily

A memoir as delightfully captivating as Under the Tuscan Sun, the story of one woman starting a new life in the "most beautiful house in Sicily.

When artists and writers like Tennessee Williams, Bertrand Russell, Roald Dahl, and the painter Henry Faulkner visited Sicily, they stayed at Casa Cuseni, a perfectly proportioned house built in golden stone on a hillside rising near Mount Etna. For fifty years, this has been the home of Daphne Phelps, who now tells its story with warmth, charm, and style.

In 1947, with barely any Italian and precious little money, the war-weary, thirty-four-year-old Daphne arrived in Taormina to sell the house she had unexpectedly inherited. Instead, she fell in love with the house and its gardens, the community and its way of life. To raise enough money to keep her magical inheritance, Daphne ran Casa Cuseni as a pensione, receiving a variety of illustrious guests.

No less important are the local Sicilians with whom she shared the love and care of Casa Cuseni: Don Ciccio, the town's own Mafia don; Vincenzio, the general manservant who recited poetry while he served the meals; Beppe, a Don Juan who scented his eyebrows and mustache; and above all the steadfast cook and housekeeper, Concetta, who lives with Daphne in her house in Sicily still.