He and his brother William Ingham Whitaker (Pylewell Park)inherited vast vineyards and his great grandfather Ingham's banking empire. Choosing Palermo over the more provincial Marsala, he built the "Villa Malfitano", an Italian Art Nouveau mansion near Zisa Castle on the Via Dante after his marriage to Tina Scalia. Tina was the daughter of General Alfonso Scalia who landed in Sicily with Giuseppe Garibaldi during the years leading up to the Risorgimento. They had two daughters; the elder of which married General Antonio Di Giorgio(1868-1932) an Italian Minister of War who fought in the 1st and 2nd wars in Abyssinia. Thus the family was firmly established in the upper echelons of Italian Society.