In Andalusia, Between Granada And The Coast, A Historic Manor House, With Its Gatehouse, Chapel

In Andalusia, between Granada and the coast, a historic manor house, with its gatehouse, chapel, mill and Moorish gardens. It took six years of work for a document dating back more than five centuries to resurface. Written in Arabic, this deed of sale records that in the spring of 1492, three months after the surrender of Granada, a Moor who was about to leave the country sold this estate. A family of Spanish nobility subsequently lived there for over five hundred years, and the manor house still bears the mark of those generations. The vaulted drawing room retains its original stone fireplace, the panelled dining room can seat twenty-five guests, and the bedrooms, each one different, extend right up to the tower. Surrounding it, the gatehouse, the old mill, the casita and the chapel, with its sacristy, form a complex that resembles as much a hamlet as a manor. Further afield, on a promontory, the Moorish gardens unfold with fountains and hidden paths, overlooking a valley that stretches all the way to the sea. Few properties can trace their origins back to their very beginnings; this one derives its title directly from the last Moorish owner himself.