House Hunting in ... Cyprus

This two-story white stone villa in the picturesque town of Pano Lefkara in south-central Cyprus was built around 1900. A pair of adjoining small houses with a total of four bedrooms, the villa largely retains its original structure, though it has been updated by the well-known Cypriot architect Yiannis Armeftis with a swimming pool and features like a spa room and a courtyard.

The property has two entrances from the street, one for each unit. It currently functions as a holiday guesthouse called the RedBlueDoor House — with one set of front doors painted red and the other blue. The business makes a profit of about 3,000 euros (about $3,900) a month, said Marina Armefti, the owner.

With a total 2,500 square feet of space, it could be used as two homes or one; the furnishings, many of them traditional, are included in the asking price. Both units are air-conditioned and have wooden-beam ceilings, as well as wood and stone floors and finishes, much of them in Cypriot pine. The two living rooms each have wood-burning stoves, and the two custom kitchens have stained wooden cupboards, and countertops and backsplashes of multicolored Italian ceramic tile. Most windows have traditional plank shutters. The terrace has views of the mountains and the Mediterranean.

The red front doors open to a living room with the kitchen to the left. Beyond is a landscaped courtyard, with a 12-by-15-foot swimming pool between the units. Two ground-floor bedrooms, each with an en-suite bath, can be reached from the courtyard. An external staircase leads to a terraced second floor, which has a contemporary-style pergola leading to a windowed room housing a spa, a steambath and an adjoining bathroom.

The blue front doors also open to a living room, then to a sitting area with a wall of folding glass doors facing a patio. The kitchen and a bathroom are adjacent to the sitting area. The patio has a sliding wooden partition separating it from the swimming pool, and an external stairway leading to a terrace with a pergola. Doors there lead to two bedrooms and a shared bath.

The property has no private parking, but a public parking lot is about 20 yards away. Pano Lefkara, a scenic hill town legally protected from development, has about 1,100 residents. Its artisans are renowned for their lace and silverwork. There are small markets for grocery shopping, and a supermarket is about five minutes away by car, Ms. Armefti said. The village also has several restaurants and coffee shops. The closest beach is Governor’s Beach, which is about 15 minutes away. The villa is a 40-minute drive from the international airport in Larnaca, the third-largest city on the southern coast.

In some cities, Paphos and Limassol among them, foreigners constitute as much as 75 percent of the market, so the global downturn dealt the country a severe blow.

In Paphos in particular, prices fell as much as 50 percent, while values in Nicosia, the capital, where 90 percent of buyers are Cypriots, fell very little, said Mike Braunholtz, sales director with the agency Prestige Property Group.

“The market is beginning to re-emerge now,” he said, adding that prices have regained about half of what they lost, depending on the area.

An upscale beachfront home would typically cost 4,000 to 5,000 euros per square meter, while a luxury home in Larnaca, the large city closest to Pano Lefkara, would run about 2,000 euros per square meter, said Sophia Morphis, an agent with Africanos Real Estate, which has the listing for this villa.

The villa, which has been on the market for less than a month, is priced at 1,956 euros per square meter, which is a bit higher than most in the area because it’s a holiday home, Ms. Morphis said.

On the southern coast in Limassol, which has drawn a large influx of Russian buyers in recent years, a high-end home on the beach might cost more than 10,000 euros per square meter, said Panayiotis Makedonas, director of the agency Country Rose Ltd., an affiliate of Sotheby’s International Real Estate.