Think about what you know about rural tourism. Now forget it.
Let's look carefully at this photo.
Think about what you know about rural tourism. Now forget it.
We see a rural landscape ; could Andalusia or Extremadura. We see trees, they look like cork oaks and olive trees. We see a village. Or a convent. Or it could be a farmhouse on a farm. There are some buildings that look like silos. And something that has all the appearance of a street. At the bottom there is water; must be a lake or a swamp.
Anything else that stands out? Yes: there is nothing else around . The horizon is far.
All that and none of that is Sao Lourenco do Barrocal . Neither a farmhouse nor a village is Spanish; yes it is a remote place surrounded by Nature . Let's leave the mystery. We have little time and a lot of intrigue.
One of the Barrocal cottages
This unclassifiable place is in the Alentejo , near the border between Portugal and Spain. If we get pedantic we can define it as a sophisticated exercise in hospitality style . If we get romantic as a family dream. In both cases we will be right. Sao Lourenco do Barrocal , or Barrocal, is the project by Jose Antonio Uva , a Portuguese man who decided to convert a farm that had belonged to his family for 200 years into a hotel with residences . So far it seems somewhat ambitious but not crazy. That will come later, when we reveal the details.
First, a bit of epic . These lands in the photograph (and some more, up to 700 hectares) were expropriated from their owners in 1974 , after the Revolution of the Carnations. Until 1991 the government did not return them. It was at the beginning of this century when Uva, the eighth generation of the family and then living in London, decided something quixotic. He was going to bring the farm back to life, actually it was more village than farm , because it had houses, vineyards, cereal fields, offices, houses, its own chapel and even a school.
The most Barrocal-friendly means of transport
To do this, José Antonio, instead of dedicating himself to looking at Google, decided to look at the sky. He moved to the farm for two years to see what the rhythm of the seasons was like. , of light, to study the earth and think about what he would like to do on it. So, on the farm there was nothing habitable or inhabited. He lived in the only covered space on the property. . He acknowledges that "coming from an urban environment those two years I learned to have patience and resilience."
He had in mind the architecture of the Sea Ranch in California, the gardens of Babylonstoren in South Africa, and the work of Dan Barber at Stone Barns in upstate New York. he began to think with anthropologists, landscapers, historians and architects . Once he had everything clear he began the construction of Barrocal employing people from the Alentejo and an illustrious Portuguese, the Pritzker Prize winner Souto de Moura . Fourteen years later, in 2016, it opened its doors.
Barrocal, blessed quixotic dream!
What Uva forged in that time of retirement was... a retreat . He describes it as a " contemporary farmhouse rooted in heritage and community that could only be where it is.”
Barrocal is a way of understanding the rural tourism as avant-garde as centennial. The idea of the factotum, which is easy to see having breakfast with the guests with his wife and his children, was to build a hotel in the old workers' homes with all the mod cons of our time but with all the simplicity that the earth asked for . It would have a bar, restaurant, spa, orchard, swimming pool... What is expected of a good hotel, because if it is part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World it's for something
Nevertheless, it doesn't look like a hotel : his appearance is more than a village, ranch or monastery. It would be a kind of shelter diffuse where the idea of town and hotel merge. Souto de Moura rehabilitated the spaces and they were decorated with pieces by Portuguese artisans such as the Burel blankets or the ceramics of Estudio Caldas da Ranhia . In Barrocal there is a main construction, called Mountain with a central street that is the axis of life.
Barrocal "could only be where it is"
Around it are the rooms, which have various formats, from doubles to villas with 2-3 rooms that are articulated around patios with pools and lavender on the walls . In total, Barrocal sleeps 114 people. In the Monte there are also the reception, the shop, the bar and the restaurant, as if it were the main street of a town. But 700 hectares give for much more.
windows to tranquility
So far it seems that we are talking about a good rural hotel, or a great hotel , plus. In Portugal there are many and very unique. Uva knew it and raised the bet. She wanted to preserve but also create something new. He decided that the nice thing would be if others had the same luck as him: have his own house in the Alentejo.
He has designed three housing complexes for them: one designed by Souto de Moura, also in charge of the rehabilitation of Monte, another by John Pawson and another by an architectural firm that prepared the main project. The idea is that anyone can buy a hectare of land and choose which architect they want their house from. . This project will begin in the coming months. They are simple houses that connect with the local architecture but nobody looks for a farmhouse or a stately home: here everything is apparently austere. Barrocal is like a painting by Lucio Fontana, an exercise in poor art.
An exercise in Arte Povera
To Barrocal, therefore, you can go as a guest and as an owner . Everyone will enjoy the spaces of the farm, the 16 dolmens and 7000 year old menhirs . Also of common services such as the swimming pool , guarded by a granite rock four meters high. Or the vegetable patch , from which fruits of wild beauty grow and which feeds the restaurant, which is open to everyone.
Going to dinner here is a good excuse to get to know this unique place. The bar, where every afternoon a cake and iced tea to guests is also not exclusive. Not even the spa, the only one on the peninsula of the Austrian brand Susanne Kaufman , where anyone can reserve a treatment and revel in its monastic walls and its details of popular crafts. The plans here are both sophisticated and basic.
The children look for the animals (there are many of both species) and the older ones read horizontally or walk around. A basic plan is to look at the stars. We can do it anywhere in the world, but not like here, because the Alentejo sky is certified dark sky reserve, dark sky reserve. In this place the sky is black and the planets are white.
The neighboring ruminants of Barrocal
You have to overcome the temptation to stay in Barrocal and not go out to explore the area. In this curious hotel there is a lot to do . EITHER nothing to do, which is a very powerful thing. However, we are in the Alentejo and, before it becomes the new Algarve, we must taste the area.
Speaking of Qatar, we haven't talked Of the wine. This is an area of wine tradition. Wherever we go, we must try the local wine. Barrocal himself, who grows eight different grapes, makes his own.
Barrocal has, of course, its own winery
Let's get back to the excursion we're about to take. If we leave Barrocal there are two obligatory stops. The first in Monsaraz . This village perched on a mountain was fought over by the Romans and Arabs. Today it is a little or nothing adulterated gem. If Vinicius de Moraes wrote of her that "I didn't want to go back because if I did it would be to stay" , we will have to pay our respects to the people.
Another stop, in the opposite direction is Sao Pedro do Corval . The life of this town revolves around hand-painted pottery. We find the workshops on the main road and if we look behind the shop we can see how the women paint with concentration. or we can go to Alqueve, the lake that we saw in the pool. Yes, it is an artificial lake, the largest in Europe and it even has beaches, but let's not say it high, which are filled with people. Nor should we say out loud everything we know about Barrocal, so that it remains a secret. So the time has come to stop writing.
The details of Barrocal's lives