Six rooms in a nineteenth-century palazzo on the edge of the Sassi, above a frantoio cut into the rock. The press worked the estate’s olives for eighty years; the rooms above it opened to guests in 2019, restored with as little intervention as the building would allow.
The house
The palazzo was built in 1878 for a family of oil merchants, on the lip of the Sassi where the town drops away into the ravine. The frantoio was cut into the rock at street level; the family’s own rooms sat on the two floors above. The presses ran until 1961.
The restoration took three years and removed more than it added. Later partitions came down, the original terrazzo was patched rather than replaced, and the tufa walls of the old press room were left with the soot still on them.
Il Frantoio
A ground-floor room cut into the rock, set inside the building’s original olive press, its walls still marked by the soot of the old kilns.
28 m²
· Sleeps 2
La Loggia
A first-floor room with its own small loggia over Via Ridola — wide enough for two chairs and a coffee at sunrise.
30 m²
· Sleeps 2
Il Belvedere
The palazzo’s largest room, with a private rooftop terrace looking out over the Sassi.
45 m²
· Sleeps 3
Dining
Under the press-room vaults
Dinner is served in the lower vaults of the old frantoio, where the ceiling comes down close over one long table and the tufa still carries the soot of the kilns that heated the press.
One seating, one menu, five nights a week. The kitchen cooks what the Murgia gives it that week — cavatelli, lamb, bitter greens, the estate’s own oil — and the table is told what there is rather than handed a card.
Olive Oil Tasting at the Estate Frantoio
Taste three estate oils side by side — a peppery new-harvest pressing of Majatica olives, a mellower late-season oil, and a barrel-aged reserve. It is led by the same family who worked this building’s frantoio before it became a hotel.
2 hours
·
On-site
Guided Walk of the Sassi and Rock Churches
A local historian leads a walk down through Sasso Caveoso and into two of the rock-cut churches, ending on the Civita as the light goes off the ravine. It covers ground most visitors miss, at a pace that suits anyone comfortable on uneven stone.
1.5 hours
·
8-minute walk
Cooking Class: Cavatelli & Pane di Matera
Learn to roll cavatelli by hand the way it is still done in Materan home kitchens, then sit down to eat what you have made with a loaf of the town’s own bread. It runs at the long table under the press-room vaults, the same table dinner is served on.
3 hours
·
On-site
We came for one night on the way to the coast and stayed three. The room in the old olive press, rock walls still black from the kilns, was worth the trip on its own.
Sofia Moretti
·
Milan, Italy
Getting here
Bari Karol Wojtyła airport, then 1 hour 10 by car.
Matera Centrale by rail from Bari, 1 hour 30.
Parking at Piazza Matteotti, five minutes on foot.
Address
Lucera
Via Ridola 12
75100 Matera
Basilicata, Italy
Nearby
The Sassi, at the door
Parco della Murgia Materana, 20 minutes
Cripta del Peccato Originale, 25 minutes
When to come
April to June and September to October are the best of it.
July and August are hot and full.
We close for two weeks in February.