The Townhouse From the 1800s
With a timeless beauty and charm 🧡
Just a few minutes’ walk from the Paola square, this townhouse sits unconverted and brimming with potential. The Curbsy team were super excited to have the opportunity to sell and list this gorgeous four-bedroom home on our site.
It’s currently divided into three properties with three separate entrances. There are two individual maisonettes on the ground floor, which are equipped with their own living area, a kitchen, as well as a bathroom and a small yard.
With a large, double-fronted façade, two stone carved bollards and approximately 236 square metres of space, majestic would be an apt description of this home’s appearance and potential is the right word for its future.
A Closer Look at The Town
Founded in the 17th century, Paola is a town in the South Eastern region of Malta with a population of 8,706 people, as of January 2019.
Located about 5km from the capital city, Valletta, the town itself has the largest church in the Maltese islands: the impressive Basilica of Christ the King. It’s well established as a commercial centre and contains the largest burial grounds and the only mosque in Malta.
The main attraction is undoubtedly the Hypogeum — a prehistoric underground UNESCO World Heritage Site. In brief, the Hypogeum was used as a temple and burial site with countless archaeological materials having been recovered and now displayed in the National Museum of Archeology in Valletta.
Take a Virtual Tour
A modern buyer needs more than just photographs and floorplans in today’s technological world. You want to have an immersive experience of your potential future home before you’ve even stepped through the front door.
Our photographer and videographer, Nathan, provides this for every home we list and this one is no exception. Take a look for yourself below.
Could you imagine yourself living here, surrounded by original Maltese architecture? What about running a successful business with all that space to play with?
Read on as we highlight some of our favourite parts and what we think this home could become.
Authentic Features
Staircase
One of the most striking features of this property has got to be the stunning staircase. Originally made out of stone, the current owners have laid a marble effect over the top, giving it a cleaner, more elegant feel.
Long, winding staircases are a wonderful, traditional feature of many townhouses in Malta. They offer a solid, central focus in the home and the darker black of the railings in this townhouse contrast nicely with the lighter coloured floor.
They’re different to the older garigor, the tightly wound spiral staircases used in ancient cultures that often extend from the basement of a home straight up to the roof, with an exit on each floor.
High Ceilings
Ventilating a building, especially one as large as this home, is extremely important, and older properties will almost always have super tall ceilings in order to allow light and airflow to circulate through the building by natural means. Interestingly, the older a building is, the higher the ceiling tends to be.
You can see in the photo above an example of the stone slabs, or xorok, that serve to support the ceiling structure and hold everything firmly in place. They’re often resting on corbels, kileb in Maltese, which project out just under the ceiling in a line.
Wooden Internal Doors
Wood is generally scarcer than stone in Malta with the country having few trees left. Pine and other trees once blanketed the islands, but it was through the Order of St. John and their need to build warships that severely diminished the tree population. The ones that do remain are now heavily protected.
The internal doors in this townhouse are all made out of wood in the traditional fashion, reminiscent of how carpenters in Malta used to construct both the internal and external doors when aluminium wasn’t available. When metal became readily accessible, aluminium “became the norm”.
These are just a few of our favourites but the house has many more to choose from, including an old stone well and its beautifully thick, traditional walls.
Potential
We mentioned at the start of this article the sheer potential that this home has. Let’s take a look at the options you have available to you if you purchase this property and what could be done to transform it:
1. Boutique Hotel/Airbnb Residence
Perhaps the most exciting prospect is the idea of a bespoke hotel. Smaller, luxurious hotels have become popular as customers look for more out of their holiday time and budgets. They also give a sense of intimacy and attention to detail that the larger chains just can’t provide. We think this townhouse offers a unique opportunity, being so close to the Paola square but set apart from the busy outlets.
There are two cellars in this home, a larger one and another smaller one. For the larger cellar, the current owners have envisioned it being turned into a lavish spa that has an indoor pool, with the upper floors serving as the living and sleeping quarters. Or, there’s the possibility of having a restaurant that provides a private dining space with the smaller, arched cellar (pictured below) utilised as the wine cellar.
Ultimately, boutique hotels offer a time to relax away from the hustle and bustle of larger, more chaotic environments but still provide an independent getaway, with the principles of luxury, comfort and service at the forefront of the experience.
Similarly, this home would function well as an Airbnb residence, with hosts that have knowledge of the local area, its activities and the best places to source local produce.
2. Rental Investment
In complete contrast, new home-seekers could make the decision to turn the whole property into an office block with the rooms themselves as the offices.
It’s also quite possible to leave one of the maisonettes on the ground floor as a separate annexe for any elderly relatives or extended family to stay in. It would also serve well for any live-in carers, with the ability to be ‘on-site’ whilst providing a space of their own.
Of course, there’s always the option of keeping this home as exactly that — a large family home. This could be accomplished easily by reopening the old closed-off doorways and reconnecting the three properties as one.
If you’re looking to upsize and grow your family then the square metres provided here are surely desirable.
Interested?
Check out the video below where our Office Coordinator, Candace, gives you a brief rundown of this townhouse and its potential.
If you’re eager to see more about this beautiful home, visit the full listing on our site here where you’ll find lots more photographs and a full list of features.
Give our team a call on +356 7988 8117 or email us at support@curbsy.com.mt. We’re more than happy to answer any questions you might have or arrange a private viewing.
