about us
All my happy places are in the summer. And in it’s houses.
First in the Azores, where I grew up, and in the Algarve in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Alentejo came later, as an adult. As a refuge.
With its intense heat, the shade of the cork oaks, the song of the cicadas. The whitewashed walls, the courtyards, and the water running in the canal. And dipping my feet in the springs of the rice paddies.
A love they taught me.
Which is also the love of stillness and wandering.
From this love comes the idea of rebuilding the ruins of Montinhos. It is a quiet place. With its "listening chimneys" where so many rumors and stories passed.
What is tangible today is the materialization of memories of those summers, of struggles, stories, and destiny.
I thank my husband and Santa Catarina.
- MAFALDA
I grew up with music, in a high fidelity to the sounds I've carried since childhood. Pentatonic scales, clearly rooted in my Eastern origins.
These could only have anticipated the great well-being I feel in this natural, almost silent Alentejo region, sometimes interrupted by the chatter of storks in the raw green of the rice fields, the chirping of bluethroats, or even the simple rustling of sparrows wings searching for nesting sites. Ultimately, it seems we all yearn for the same things.
The will and soulful strength to carry out this entire edifice truly belongs to my wife; I am merely the one trying to make all her wishes a tangible reality.
- RUI