An #EverydayBeautiful Detour: The Mystery of Casa Estrada

There's something about an old building in a state of beautiful decay. It's a mysterious thing to me, a place once lived-in and loved, now abandoned and all but lost to time. 

Walking along the Sant Pol beach promenade in S'Agaro, a coastal town on the Costa Brava in Spain, this moderniste building with the nine spires is an impressive sight.

So is the state of the structure.

It's an impressive mess.

Blame it on all the Nancy Drew and Harriet the Spy books from my childhood - my inner detective is impossible to ignore. I was beyond intrigued and because I literally can't stop myself, the sleuthing began. 

First, we asked around to discover the name, “Casa Estrada”, we were told in a nearby cafe.

So we had a name and a place to start.

Evidently the Estrada family was in the cork business. As in wine corks. A lucrative business for this part of the coast, Baix Emporda, is well known for its wine production.

At the end of the 19th century, Casa Estrada was the very first residential building constructed on the beachfront. It must have been quite a sight, this multi-spired edifice perched dramatically alone on the sea front.

Once completed, the Estrada Family continued to develop the area with four additional chalets and a school. This was the beginning of the beach resort as it is today.

Because of the nine towers, the locals referred to Casa Estrada as "Casa de la Punxes", which is Catalan for "House of the Spikes."

For a while, the locals believed that the nine towers commemorated each of the nine Estrada children. Supposedly the family said this myth was not true.

I thought we were really starting to get somewhere. But sadly, this is when the facts become a little sparse. Josep Goday i Casals is sometimes attributed as the architect, however it seems unlikely as Goday was born in 1882 and construction on Casa Estrada supposedly began in 1890. Unless of course Goday was a design child prodigy before his 10th birthday.

There also seems to be little information on what happened to the Estrada family, or where the descendents of their nine children are today.

The next piece of information is that the estate was sold to a hotel developer in 2013. 

And then nothing.

The building, once a family home, seemed to fall deep into a despair and no hotel emerged from the ruins.

It appears that the developer from 2013 has abandoned the project. Today, the property is listed on this real estate site as available for interested parties.

This girl detective has come to a dead-end, the mystery remains unresolved.

In the meantime, if anyone has a dream to transform a dilapidated beach front moderniste home into a beautiful boutique hotel experience, I found your next project.

And if you need a designer, you know where to find me.

I’ve already started to sketch.