Late radio DJ’s ‘haunted house’ on sale for €3m

Encarna Sánchez, originally from Carboneras (Almería province) was a feisty and formidable talk radio host who won three Ondas Awards and whose slots were compared globally with The Oprah Winfrey Show.

She died almost 23 years ago to the day, aged 60, from lung cancer in her 672-square-metre mansion in La Moraleja, Alcobendas (Madrid), which had been built eight years earlier.

The ground floor contains a library and studio-office where Encarna prepared her controversial radio programmes.

She had had the basement renovated into a wine cellar and banquet hall, where she celebrated her numerous and famous élite parties with Spain’s jet-set, and this floor also contains a sauna, gym, two bathrooms and another office.

Legends that have developed since Encarna’s death include the rumour that she had a secret underground tunnel built between her home and that of flamenco veteran Isabel Pantoja on the same urbanisation – even though, in practice, the properties are 12 kilometres apart.

It has gone through several celebrity hands since Encarna passed away, although one of the most recent owners was an anonymous family whose housekeeper left because she was spooked by ‘strange phenomena’ which led to rumours that the mansion was haunted.

Lights suddenly switching off, the electricity tripping and rebooting for no reason, doors and windows opening and shutting by themselves – but only in Encarna’s studio-offices, never in any other part of the house – and sudden cold draughts where no window was open are among the paranormal claims made by the family who owned the house.

After Encarna’s death, it was inherited by her closest friend, Pilar Cebrián – better known by her stage name, Clara Suñer – who, along with Encarna’s beloved godson Sacha Gordillo, was left all the presenter’s worldly goods.

Croatian striker Davor Suker bought the house during his time playing for Real Madrid, for 500 million pesetas (about €3 million), its current sale price.

Suker was going out with famous Spanish TV presenter Ana Obregón at the time, but before they moved in, the couple was seen entering the mansion with reporter Paloma Gómez Borrero and a priest, Father Pilón.

As Sra Gómez Borrero reported afterwards, the priest was a Jesuit who was an expert in the paranormal and had checked it to make sure there were no ghosts and blessed it before Suker and Obregón set up home there.

The magnificent mansion is worth much more than €3m on today’s market, but rumours of its being haunted mean it is on sale for a lower price.

If anyone who has a spare few million and can cope with the possibility of the ghost of a famous radio DJ carrying on working there, the splendid home is said to be ‘a great opportunity’.

The picture shows Encarna Sánchez during her heyday in the 1980s, on the radio station COPE.