Set in the green hills above the pretty, white-washed, town of São Brás de Alportel, Monte de Palmeira captured me with its charms before I had even walked through its old wooden doors. Doors with a stone portico, framed by two tall cypress trees, that stretched up to the cloudless Algarvian skies. Its old stones seemed to radiate warmth, not just from the reliable Portuguese sun, but in a benevolent fashion that whispered of laughter and long lunches, promised happy memories and a love affair that would last.
I have been back many times now, mostly with my family of eight and our dog, Bellini. All of us love it fiercely, no doubt for different reasons, but it wraps us in its embrace each time leaving us, after our spells apart, happily reacquainted with each other. It also provides us with the joy of floating mindlessly on a lilo in the middle of the blue pool (me) long chess matches (my sons, multi-tasking by the BBQ), games under the stars (all of us) and playing fetch with the ball (Bellini and my two grand-daughters). This year, an added pleasure in amongst the pomegranates and lemons, carobs and figs, was the abundance of olives on the 300 or so trees; their plumpness reported on daily by my husband on his morning walk. Autumn, I am told, will bring the first Monte de Palmeira olive oil for guests to enjoy.
The original farmhouse dates back to 1894. When the current owners found it, it had long been abandoned and left in ruins, but they painstakingly resurrected it with just the help of a local stone mason and his team. Key was to preserve its original foundation and its very Portuguese character; thick white-washed stone walls, sloping ceilings lined with reeds, typically decorative Algarvian chimney stacks and a huge, welcoming, fireplace. The heart of the house when we are there in winter. A few years later the tower was added, although you would never know it wasn’t original, with its matching terracotta roof tiles and its very traditional terrace off the bedroom, from where, if you are up early enough, you can watch the sun rise over the hills heralding another cloudless day.
It isn’t a big house, but there is a corner for us all. And it comes with choices. Where to have our breakfast is the first one of the day. There is a table in the little courtyard beneath the pomegranate trees, to the side of the house which is still in the shade, when the eggs are cooked and the avocado sliced, so we normally end up there. But sometimes we head to the small round marble tables which cluster around the stone seat which runs along one wall, giving views out over the countryside.
For lunch we always sit in the cool of the shaded dining area, tucked underneath the terrace of the tower, a pink trumpet vine framing the view out onto the sparkling swimming pool at the bottom of the path through the garden. There is a huge marble table there, always cold to the touch even in the heat of a Portuguese summer. On, one side is the BBQ, built into the wall, on the other there is a hatch to the summer kitchen where the heavy, natural terracotta clay plates, typical of the region, live, but we tend to favour the beautiful speckled blue and white ones, handmade by a little pottery, Olaria Pequeno, about 30 minutes away. They are also heavy and I can almost mark the years we have been coming, by when my granddaughters were allowed to carry them back and forth to the big main kitchen.