Private Mediterranean islands rarely come up for sale, but Punta Pennata, a sliver of land in the Gulf of Naples with the crumbling walls of an old Roman villa tucked amid its overgrown flora, has been on the market for several months.
Located about 20 miles from downtown Naples, the narrow island with its abrupt cliffs sits like an exclamation point just off the seaside town of Bacoli.
“Surrounded by lush Mediterranean vegetation and Roman relics, it offers a fascinating and unique retreat,” reads the promotional blurb from Sotheby’s International Realty. Punta Pennata, it adds, is an “exclusive opportunity for a prestigious investment.”
That is one version of the island’s future.
The other comes from Josi Gerardo Della Ragione, the mayor of Bacoli, who envisions the island as a public park. In private hands for decades and barely visited, its unspoiled flora would draw residents and visitors alike to a lesser known part of Italy’s coastline, according to the mayor.
“It is like Neverland,” he said in an interview in his office, evoking Peter Pan’s fictional island. “It is a place you can go just to daydream,” he added. “Bacoli is small, but it can still be chaotic.”
The sale has become something of a populist struggle, pitting the quest for a deep-pocketed buyer against a more communal alternative. The main hindrance to the mayor’s plan is the price tag, which Sotheby’s put at around 10 million euros (roughly $10.3 million.)
Since the island was valued at roughly two million euros just a few years ago, the price is “robber baron speculation,” said Mr. Della Ragione, a 37-year-old former journalist who has served as mayor for seven years overall, representing Free Bacoli, a homegrown leftist party that sprouted from a blog founded by civic activists.
Asked about the listing price, Sotheby’s pointed to the one-of-a-kind nature of the property.
The last boom in luxury real estate around here occurred about 2,000 years ago, when the northern coast of the Gulf of Naples was a playground for the Roman Empire’s aristocracy. “It was the Monte Carlo of its time,” said Mr. Della Ragione. Extensive thermal baths were part of the draw. Even the occasional emperor came swanning through. The entire region is part of the Campi Flegrei, or the Phlegraean Fields, a vast area of volcanic activity that includes nearby Mount Vesuvius. The land has risen and fallen over the centuries — a seismic process known as bradyseism.
The vibrant mosaic floors of former palatial, beachfront Roman villas now sit on the seabed, four or five yards under crystalline blue and peridot waters, visible to scuba divers and snorkelers. Small temblors occur regularly.
The harbor adjacent to Punta Pennata island once served as the home port for the Roman naval fleet that dominated the western Mediterranean, records indicate. Some of its galleys rescued survivors fleeing Pompeii after Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D.
Ciro Amoroso, an amateur historian, embraces the idea of a park on Punta Pennata. “It is our history, our heritage,” he said. “It is part of who we are, so we don’t want it sold.”
There is at least one possible out. Italian law grants any municipality the right to match the asking price for a property with historical significance. Although the mayor is willing to spend his budget for cultural activity on the purchase and expects some help from the regional government, the potential sum does not approach the asking price, he said.
Instead, he hopes to mobilize certain allies, starting with the dead. City records indicate that between 1830 and 1860, about 1,000 people, many of them plague victims, were buried on the island. The location of the graves remains a mystery, but since a cemetery is public property, the mayor wonders whether the island was privatized using some manner of illegal bureaucratic shenanigans.
The sale involves 5,000 square meters of land (about 54,000 square feet), including a decaying 200-square-meter house. The house is distinct from the ruins of the old Roman villa, though it, too, is being reclaimed by the surrounding woods. It was last used 10 or 12 years ago by the grandfather of the family selling the land, and he habitually sat there to watch migratory birds, said Diletta Giorgolo, the head of residential sales for Sotheby’s International in Italy.
The island already falls under the general purview of the area’s parks authority, so any owner would need a permit for landscaping like felling trees, said Francesco Maisto, the president of the Regional Park of Campi Flegrei. That mandate extends to the surrounding water, a protected area because of its rare Posidonia sea grass.
“Even if you buy the island, you cannot just come and do what you want on it,” Mr. Maisto said. “It is a green lung in the area.”
Ms. Giorgolo portrays the raft of restrictions as a selling point, preserving the bucolic yet historic character of the island. It also means that all any new owner could most likely do is to renovate the house.
Even that is subject to dispute. Since the original building permit allowed for a 120-square-meter structure, said the mayor, the additional 80 square meters are suspect. The various bureaucratic hurdles might deter any buyer, the mayor said, laughing. Those hurdles include that the sale and any construction requires his permission.
Ms. Giorgolo holds that someone hoping to create a retreat will not be deterred. “It will be a certain kind of buyer,” she said. “It’s for people that are maybe rich, but also simple.”
Viewings will only begin when the weather improves. It has not even been shown to the mayor. The family that owns the island declined interview requests, with Ms. Giorgolo describing the owner as “shy,” and the mayor saying that the Neapolitan family found all the public attention annoying.
Not that it takes much to reach Punta Pennata. It was once a peninsula, not an island, until a raging storm in 1966 swept away the sand beach linking it to the mainland. That side is now a popular beach, and you can wade out a few yards to the island’s only landing, a small cement jetty. From there, a tall, rusty fence blocks access.
Throughout Italy, the state owns the shoreline. In theory, the public could cavort along the edges of the ridge-like island, but there is no beach, only steep cliffs and occasional rocky outcroppings.
Some Bacoli residents doubt the wisdom of the city acquiring the island. Antonio Pugliese, 50, who promotes the use of traditional sailing vessels, thinks an island park would be too expensive to maintain. But most people questioned at random around the town supported the idea.
Inside the cavelike Scairdac deli, with cheeses and hams curing in the rafters, Giuseppe Scamardella offers visitors an array of local delicacies: First pane sciocco, bread baked with potatoes and mozzarella, and friarielli, a local green that is a more bitter version of broccoli.
Mr. Scamardella, 67, is one of the few people in Bacoli who remember being on Punta Pennata. As a boy, he gathered mushrooms and wild asparagus while his father hunted quail and rabbits. He has not been on the island since the storm.
Bacoli has to do something to compete for visitors, otherwise all the young people will leave, he said, even if his daughter is the fifth generation to run the family store.
“If somebody private buys the island, it will be a terrible thing,” Mr. Scamardella said. “We will lose a little of Bacoli’s soul.”
Virginia DiGaetano contributed reporting.
