Townhouse for sale in Llanes, Asturias

El Castillo de Porrúa, en Llanes. The property with the most privileged location in the east of Asturias. Located between Los Picos de Europa and the Cantabrian Sea.
Surrounded the town of Porrúa, one of the most touristic in Asturias, with views of the Cantabrian Sea and the Picos de Europa. The interior, all the castle’s floors have received the necessary maintenance, always respecting its original essence and giving priority to natural light to create a spacious and warm atmosphere. The castle is located in one of the most vibrant areas of the east of Asturias. In summer, tourist activity is lively and exciting, full of cultural initiatives, “prao” festivities, gastronomy and events suitable for the whole family. This activity continues throughout the rest of the year, during which Trail races and surfing are protagonists. All the inhabitants of the Llanes council are concerned with always offering something to their visitors. Cider and good food are never lacking.
The history of El Castillo, as it is known today, is a singular example of a standalone house of Indian-inspired architecture. It is located in the Barrio de La Pasera, in Porrúa, a town 5 kilometers southwest of Llanes, the capital of the same council, in the eastern region of Asturias, equidistant from Oviedo, the capital of the Principality of Asturias, and Santander, the capital of Cantabria. As in all towns in the region, emigration to America was constant throughout the 19th century, and the work—both public and private—carried out with Indian capital, a term used to designate someone who becomes wealthy from America, has in Porrúa a singular example. Architect Marta Llavona Campo, in a study specifically for the Llanes council, analyzes it rigorously. The title of the study well defines what this type of architecture means for Llanes (and therefore also for the singular case of Porrúa): an architecture of distinction. Analysis and evolution of Indian houses in the Llanes council between 1870 and 1936 (Real Instituto de Estudios Asturianos. Oviedo, 2007). In it we will find multiple references to the Castle, one of the thirteen “residences financed with Indian capital” in Porrúa, junto a otros edificios de recreo u obra pública diversa del pueblo de Porrúa. Before this monographic work Covadonga Álvarez Quintana had published her extensive work Indianos y Arquitectura en Asturias (1870–1930), (COATT, Oviedo, 1991), a basic reference in the field and in it she details what the whole of Porrúa means as an example, where there existed “an important colony of fortunate emigrants more in Mexico than in Cuba, and whose presence has left an imprint on the built landscape” and of course there are several references to El Castillo. Although the area where the house is located is called La Pasera, today the name El Castillo is the designation by which it is known, for obvious reasons of its appearance and its situation, in a high area from the perspective of its accesses, both from the east and from the west. In the lifetime of one of its inhabitants, Don Salvador Villar, father-in-law of the owner, and for a long time, it was known as “Casa de Don Salvador”; today it is no longer used. The work was designed by its owner Pio Junco del Pandal, an Indian from Cuba, where he had been taken by his uncle Celestino del Pandal Sánchez, who was an architect in the City Hall of Matanzas, having studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (Madrid), returning to Cuba after obtaining his degree. About Pio Junco, Llavona adds that “he emigrated with him and studied to become a master builder, as well as an agronomic and commercial expert” adding that “El Castillo was going to be his summer residence and in it he experimented with a reinforced concrete beam and column structure. A project quite advanced for rural areas for the 1930s. Unfortunately we do not know which contractor executed the work.” The house has a square plan, basement and three floors, plus one more in the tower. The main door, to the south, with a small staircase, presenting “a solution of a loggia running on two of its floors, supported on classical columns” (Llavona) on the first of them. And closed with a large window on the second. The four-water roof. The staircase in the north part, in a squared attached body with its own four-water roof. The style of the house is broadly classified by Álvarez Quintana when she notes that although historicism does not appear in private commissions there are some examples in Asturias, among which she points out the standalone and single-family residence of El Castillo in Porrúa. This type of architecture “begins with a box of walls typical of vernacular architecture, although this does not prevent the annexation of towers and battlements with clear medieval inspiration… The fortified mansion as a particular variant of historicism serves as an introduction to the Indian house inspired by noble residential models.” It stands out against the scant attention to medieval elements that are not Christian in Asturias, in the case of Porrúa, in El Castillo “the unornamented openings with horseshoe arches that appear on the second floor of the tower would constitute, practically, the only neo-Arabist reference recorded within the built ensemble by our emigrants.” Text by José Villaverde.