Foreigners looking to change their lifestyle and attracted by the many beauties of Italy flock to buy old, inexpensive houses in Italian villages that have over time, been depopulated by changing conditions and young people looking for opportunities that simply don’t exist in small rural locations.
One such town is now being “rescued” and reinvigorated. Irsina, deep in the southern Basilicata region, is one of the old villages that had been dying a slow death since the mass immigration that started in the 1960’s.
In European countries this is not a new story, it’s quite an old one, but now there is a new angle on it. Today Irsina is home to over 300 non-Italians from 12 different countries, alongside the just 4,000 local residents remaining. In 2023, it has become an expat heaven of mostly retirees and American migrants living the rural Italian dream on the cheap.
More than 15 families from the US and Canada have bought old properties in this remote village, known for its premium wheat fields and olive groves.
And they keep buying houses and expanding their properties, spreading the word back home of this dreamy location which seems to be frozen in time. Each time they come back, they bring along relatives and friends, all of whom become happy to spend between 20,000 and 150,000 euros ($22,000-$165,000) for a spacious dwelling with bucolic views.
Walking along the narrow alleys, all sorts of accents – American, Canadian, French, Norwegian – can be heard. There’s even a road which locals have rebranded “the Belgian Street” due to the many Belgians who live there.
The old district, enclosed by high walls, is a maze of decorated stone portals, medieval watchtowers and elegant palazzos once belonging to the rich rural bourgeoisie. But the narrow, car-free streets that foreigners love aren’t what locals want. Many Irsina residents moved in the 1960s to newer neighborhoods of town, leaving the historic center largely empty.
Even though life in Irsina isn’t always idyllic, with snowy winters that isolate the town for days, migrants here say they are living the dream. The first foreign “pioneer” to buy a house in Irsina was Sandy Webster, a 63-year-old writer from San Diego.
Along with her husband Keith, 69, a Scottish finance manager, she visited on vacation in 2004. The couple fell in love with the village, bought an old house with thick stone walls, antique furniture and ancient maiolica-tile floors, and spent four years renovating it. They then relocated here from London in 2012.
This is the stuff of literature, as any reader of Frances Mayes or Peter Mayle will tell you; travel writers who capitalized on similar experiences with best-seller books, they ended up living the dream and inspiring others like the Websters to make such radical life changes.
“We drove and drove into the rural wilderness, as if further from civilization, until we got to charming Irsina. There was only one hotel back then, open for a few days a year, now there are plenty of B&Bs,” she says.
Though isolated on the hilltop, Irsina is just under two hours’ drive from the beaches of Metaponto, also in Basilicata, and Bari in neighboring Puglia.
What makes Irsina unusual among Italian villages is that once you reach the plateau, it’s flat as a pancake. There are no killer steep steps or uphill alleys, just arched passageways. Perfect for the older crowd of new residents.
“We wouldn’t change one thing. We might sometimes grumble there’s no real Mexican or Chinese food nearby to grab as an alternative to Mediterranean cuisine, which is delicious, but it’s all great,” Sandy Webster adds.
“When we got here in 2016, over 80% of the population had fled to the newer district of Irsina, the old Irsina was empty and we loved how it looked. The village just needed some attention, everyone loves vistas and views, you just need to see it through other eyes, look at the hidden value.”
Foreign interest in the old district pushed locals to spruce up their houses too, triggering a revival of Irsina. “It’s very sociable here, there’s an open-door policy, and it’s great fun. Food is locally grown; the lifestyle is healthy.”
No doubt that this is an inspiring story of urban regeneration, but one question remains: with a majority of the new population being from other countries, is Irsina still “Italy”?
