Casa Malaparte, Capri

Casa Malaparte is one of the most beautiful houses in the world and is on Punta Massullo, on the eastern side of the Capri Island, Italy.

The house was designed around 1937 by Italian Rationalist architect Adalberto Libera for Curzio Malaparte. Malaparte actually rejected Libera’s design and built the home himself with the help of Ciro Amitrano, a local stone mason.

Casa Malaparte is a red masonry box with reverse pyramidal stairs leading to the roof patio. On the roof is a freestanding curving white wall of increasing height. It sits on a dangerous cliff 32 meters above the sea overlooking the Gulf of Salerno. Access to this private property is either by foot from the Town of Capri or by boat and a staircase cut into the cliff.

Casa Malaparte was abandoned and neglected after the death of Curzio Malaparte in 1957. It suffered both from vandalism and natural elements for many years and was seriously damaged, including the desecration of a beautiful tiled stove, before the first serious renovation started in the late 1980s and early 1990s.