Let us make a brief introduction to the property: although we don’t’ hold any historical evidence regarding the date of the building, we can reach a comparative conclusion by observing the similarities with other houses in the area. These were built in the early years of the 19th Century, so our home is probably from the same age. This means it’s older than 200 years by now.
Originally it was built as the home of a bourgeois family, traders, who used the ground floor as a base for their business, while inhabiting the first floor, ours.
We don’t know much about what happened here since then. It seems that after the Second World War, during the 60’s and 70’s of the 20th Century there was a pension working here. And apparently when the people running that business eventually got too old or passed away, the house was left abandoned. Or at least the first floor as by now the shop and the offices on the ground floor already had different owners.
The elements charged their toll and with time what is now our home became little more than a ruin. To such an extent that the roof actually collapsed in two of the bedrooms. Well, in 2016 a couple – not us – bought the property as it was and with their own hands brought it back to its past splendour. New pipes were installed, the roofs were redone. Everything was fixed, furniture was brought and decoration arranged. When the job was done they started an AirBnB business and put the property on the market. For Sale. That’s when we stepped in, purchasing it on the 1st August 2018.
Curiosity: cross the street and observe the facade. The small shop / office on the left used to be the entrance for the horse carriages, providing access to a backyard where they would unload cargoes for the shop. Also, notice that on the right, the house is slightly shorter. We believe that with time, as the family grew wealthier, they added this part, probably to serve as accommodation to the servants. The old kitchen was in this part of the house and inside a storage space the former chimney can still be seen.
