Before & After: This Canary Islands Home Was a Crumbling Ruin, but She Rebuilt It Piece by Piece
Patricia Betancort Ramos uses local materials and traditional processes to revive an ancient stone structure on Lanzarote.
It’s 98 degrees on Lanzarote, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, yet sitting in the office of her home in the historic town of Teguise, architect Patricia Betancort Ramos is comfortably cool. Behind her is a limewashed wall punctuated with patches of gray—the result of moisture rising through its ancient stone structure, and the island’s perpetually humid climate. While most designers might try to conceal this natural phenomenon with layers of primer and paint, Patricia has embraced it.
These walls are a signature of her home, which she shares with her husband, three young children, and two dogs. Measuring 4,225 square feet with three open-air internal patios, it has room enough for everyone.
The original structure, which she estimates dates back to at least 1900, had been in her husband’s family for generations. It displayed the typical single-story, mission-style simplicity of the island’s rural architecture, although it fell into ruins after being uninhabited for 40 years. Seeing great potential, Patricia seized the opportunity to put into practice her ideas for sustainable construction, reuse, and the revival of hyperlocal processes and materials—a philosophy she calls "the beauty of things you don’t see."
See the full story on Dwell.com: Before & After: This Canary Islands Home Was a Crumbling Ruin, but She Rebuilt It Piece by Piece
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