🐈 A Forever Home for Cats
Santuario Sotto la Panca ODV
The Feline Worlds of the Sanctuary
Villa Gatta, Casa Gatta, and the Feline Oasis: diverse spaces, created to offer every cat a home, a family, or the freedom to live according to their nature.
At our animal sanctuary in Sicily, we have several areas dedicated to cats.
Our feline world began long before the Sanctuary itself, and over the years, it has grown alongside the stories of the animals we have encountered.
We never envisioned a single space to bring all cats together. Every animal has a story, a personality, a family, and a different relationship with humans.
This is why today the Santuario Sotto la Panca includes various feline habitats: Villa Gatta and its Happy Cat Garden, Casa Gatta – The Home of Mothers and Feline Families and the Sanctuary's Feline Oasis, where more independent cats live completely free alongside other animals.
They are different places, created at different times in our history, but united by the same idea: to offer cats safety, care, and stability for life.
🏡 Villa Gatta
The historical heart of our feline world and home to the Happy Cat Garden: a protected community in approximately 1,000 m² of green space.
🐈 Casa Gatta
The Home of Mothers and Feline Families: three floors, protected spaces, and families that can continue to live together.
🌿 The Feline Oasis
The large territory of the Sanctuary, where more independent cats find food, water, and shelter while maintaining complete freedom.
The origins of our feline world
Villa Gatta – The Happy Cat Garden
Even before the Santuario Sotto la Panca was officially established, there was already a place built around cats and their needs.
That place is Villa Gatta.
Its heart is Corrado, founder of the Sanctuary's feline world, who over the years has welcomed, cared for, and protected cats from diverse backgrounds and families.
This experience, which grew almost naturally over time, represents one of the deep roots of the project that would later become the Santuario Sotto la Panca.
Villa Gatta is home to the Happy Cat Garden: approximately 1,000 m² of protected green space, enclosed by high walls and organized around the daily needs of its inhabitants.
About 15 cats live here. They come from different backgrounds and arrived at different times, but over the years they have built a truly stable feline community.
A small world built for cats
In the Happy Cat Garden, every space has a function and, over time, has even received a name.
There's the Cat Table, where food is served and where most of the community gathers daily.
There's the Cat Kitchen, a separate space where the youngest, shyest, and those who risk being driven away by more dominant companions can eat in peace.
Under a large, protected canopy is the Sleeping Area, while a wooden house filled with straw offers an additional refuge during winter.
Villa Gatta has grown over the years with its inhabitants. It's not just a place that hosts cats: it's a small feline society with its own balances, friendships, habits, and spaces.
Families forever
Casa Gatta – The Home of Mothers and Feline Families
Some mother cats arrive with their kittens and stories in which family represents security, balance, and belonging.
For them, there is Casa Gatta.
A three-story house, with large internal spaces and a protected outdoor terrace, where mothers, children, brothers, and sisters can continue to live together.
Casa Gatta is not a nursery and it is not a temporary arrangement.
It is a forever home for feline families.
Here, kittens can grow up without their growth necessarily coinciding with separation from their mother or siblings. Families remain united and share the home's spaces according to their own rhythms.
Granella’s Family: the story of a super mom
In 2022, during a very particular moment in our history, Granella arrived.
Mina, one of our historical cats, was dying. It was in those very days that we met this seriously ill mother cat and her kittens.
Granella had found a place to raise her little ones: a fountain. There she protected and cared for them as best she could.
We welcomed the entire family, and subsequently, Granella and all her children arrived at Casa Gatta, their final destination.
Granella's health was severely compromised. Lungworms, asthma, and significant respiratory problems required years of attention, therapies, and check-ups.
It took almost four years to get to this point.
Slowly, treatment after treatment, Granella made it.
Today she lives in Casa Gatta with her children. After protecting them when she had almost nothing, she continues to live surrounded by the family she raised.
Victoria’s Family: a family that continues to grow
Victoria's Family also lives in Casa Gatta.
Victoria, whom we affectionately call Cipolletta, arrived with her little ones and needed security and a place where she could continue to be a mother.
Later, Mia, a kitten who arrived without her mother, joined the family.
Victoria welcomed her and raised her alongside her own kittens. From that moment, Mia became part of the family.
Meet the cats of Casa Gatta
Pretty, Mia, Lucy, and Desy are part of our feline families. With a symbolic adoption, you can support their story and contribute to the daily lives of the animals at the Sanctuary.
Freedom in the heart of the Sanctuary
The Feline Oasis of the Sanctuary
The third feline world is the one growing with the new Sanctuary.
On the large grounds where rescued animals live, some cats arrive spontaneously.
They find water, food, shelter, and a protected environment, but they live in complete freedom.
They can roam the grounds, choose where to sleep, approach other animals, or keep their distance. Some become daily presences, others arrive and leave according to their own rhythms.
The future: a small Cattopia in the Sanctuary
The Feline Oasis is a project destined to grow with the Sanctuary.
Our dream is for the territory to eventually become a true Cattopia: a safe place rich in small habitats, shelters, water points, and feeding areas distributed across the land.
A feline city without cages, where more independent cats can live freely but are never without protection.
A place shared with the other animals of the Sanctuary, where every species can find space, security, and respect.
Three feline worlds, one story that continues
Villa Gatta is our history and the place where it all began.
Casa Gatta is the home of mothers and feline families, where bonds can last a lifetime.
The Feline Oasis is the future: a space that will grow with the Sanctuary and that we dream will become a true Cattopia immersed in nature.
Three different places, created at different times, but part of the same story.
Because for cats too, the Sanctuary is a forever home.