Casa Cuseni, designed and built by Robert Hawthorn Kitson between 1905 and 1907 below the Rocca of Taormina, is one of several fine villas built by Englishmen who chose to add to the beauty of the town whose prospects of Mount Etna and the local coastline had captivated them. Alexander Nelson Hood, Duca di Bronte, completed the Villa Falconara a few years before and C.R. Ashbee designed the Villa San Giorgio, now a pension, in 1907 using a rather similar plan to Kitson's. Casa Cuseni has several claims to significance in Italy's architectural heritage. It represents an outstanding example from a short period when British domestic designs were a great influence in Europe, and when Italy had taken up the Stil Liberty for her own use, most notably in Sicily by Ernesto Basile and Louis Ducrot.