You can easily picture this as the home of the host in town with the best parties.

The ornate rooms are adorned with beautiful murals and frescoes on the ceiling, flowing curtains on the windows, and majestic chandeliers as centerpieces. The team at ESQVTA was tasked with updating the home to modern needs without much intervention to the existing home.

The apartment is integrated into a building originally designed as a Hotêl Particulier. The apartment occupies the first floor where the original rooms are located. There are 11 rooms in total with one of them used as a bathroom. Since the first floor is the social floor, almost all the walls and ceilings of these rooms were decorated with rich wall paintings.

When the building was transformed from a hotel into individual housing, the apartment was occupied by Pedro Espirito Santo, who was known as the host of the best parties and dinners in Lisbon at the time, and the 11 rooms served this purpose perfectly. The spacious interconnected rooms bathed in sunlight made for the perfect entertainment area.

In 2019, when the home acquired a new owner, the team at ESQVTA was tasked with adapting the space to family needs with minimal interference to the existing home. The team focused the design program on the maintenance, conservation, and restoration of the architectural heritage of the property, whilst transforming the floor to cater to the new family, adding 5 bathrooms for a total of 6.

The owners requested that the interventions should be silent, so much so that they should go un-noticed and not dispute the attention for the pre-existing details. With this as their guiding principle, the ESQVTA team chose timeless pieces that effortlessly blend the 18th-century grandeur of the original home with 21st-century design.

Modern, structural furniture clad in a deep blue velvet and unique, creative glass floor lamps align yet contrast perfectly with the color palettes presented in each room. Accents of gold found within the side tables and coffee tables match with the ornate wall mirrors reminiscent of the old world glamour that once existed in the home during its glory years as the place to see and be seen.

The luxurious vibe extends into the bedrooms and bathrooms, where an elegant, gold four-poster bed sits bathed in warm sunlight and shades of soothing pink and mint. The bathrooms feature his and her double vanities in white marble with a gold frame with matching faucets, creating a relaxing sanctuary where the masters of the home can start and end their day.

The history of the home is communicated through the preserved design details and extravagant touches, whilst the story of the residents and their preferences are subtly integrated into the apartment through their modern and minimalist updates. The team has struck a delicate balance where both the story of the architecture and the story of the residents can co-exist in harmony.

PROJECT DETAILS

Project Name: CR apartment

Project location: Rua S.Mamede, Lisbon, Portugal

Gross built area: 315.00 m2

Completion: 2020

Office of Architecture and Interior Design: ESQVTA

Principal Architect: Vitor Almeida

Photographer: © Ricardo Oliveira Alves