Estates and Houses

This typical residence of the Alacant’s Horta (Cropland) is located in front of the Cultural Centre next to a park known as “l’Hort dels Gegants” (the Garden of the Giants). It was built in the last third of the nineteenth century and it is a clear sample of a bourgeois construction of the nineteenth-century. The house is called Pedro José in honour of its owner Pedro, and his eldest son José Today it is used as a magistrates’ court. A historical incident related to the end of the Spanish Civil War took place here.

The farm El Rellonge was built in the late nineteenth century and it is located in one of the main arteries of the town, Carrer (street) Cervantes number 19. The architect Juan Vidal Ramos made the staircase facing the entrance door. Currently, this public building is the Youth Centre of Sant Joan d’Alacant. Its gardens are a regular place for citizen’s gatherings, thanks to the many events scheduled throughout the year.

Built in the seventeenth or eighteenth century with wide remodelling performed in the late nineteenth century, the house El Espinós -now the Hotel Torre Sant Joan– is located in a privileged environment allowing clients to enjoy the tranquillity of nature in a beautiful garden of orange trees, palm trees and ancient pine trees, only a few minutes from the beach and the bustling city centre. In the main building halls and rooms with fireplaces, wooden beam ceilings and antique furniture are preserved.

Sant Josep is located very close to the Finca El Comte in the district of Canelles. It was built in the nineteenth century as an agricultural estate, but it eventually became a residential house. This farm had two entrances, one on each of the roads passing next to it. The oldest is the road of Sant Joan, which is closer to the house. The other heads towards Xixona and it had a second entrance made of red brick buttresses with forged iron gate.

It is located in the district of the Passió, next to the Avinguda (Avenue) Elda -one the most famous connections between the Sant Joan beach and Sant Joan town-. It is a building built in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Originally, it was a typical farmhouse of the Alacant’s Horta(Cropland), but after being remodelled several times it became a residential house. La Torreta still has an important citrus orchard, which along with the rest of cultivated plots in the area is one of the last active strongholds of what once was the prosperous Alacant’s Orchard.

Lost in the Fabraquer Nord district, the camí (road) of la Princesa leads to this manor dating from the sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The sobriety of the building has been linked to the influence of the famous Juan de Herrera, architect of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. In the eighteenth century the complex suffered a profound transformation to accommodate its new owners, the Princess Pío of Savoy and Marchioness of Castel Rodrigo and her husband Antonio Valcárcel.

Walking down the Carrer (street) Benimagrell we find Vil·la Ramona. Although it is now a leisure and events complex, it was an ancient farm house in the past. The villa was built before the nineteenth century and underwent major remodelling between 1918 and 1919. The facade facing the garden has a more eclectic composition typical of the French small hotels: sloping roofs and a roof ridge perpendicular to the facade. The garden preserves part of the pine trees and palm trees and a large terrace, similar to those used throughout the nineteenth century.

Under the shade of ancient pine trees, ficus and jacaranda we find this abandoned treasure. It was built in the nineteenth century next to the old homonymous road leading to the coast. Despite its current deterioration, the composition of its volumes, the red ochre colour of its facade and the refined style of French influence, make this house one of the most beautiful buildings in the region. The villa had beautiful gardens and a chapel, in which a great lantern stands out crowning the dome with zinc tiles.

In the district of Fabraquer Nord, in the Carrer (street) Sant Antoni, we find Finca Abril. It is a recreation house built before the seventeenth century which suffered major transformations in the late nineteenth century that turned the place into a sophisticated space, capable of making us enjoy with the five senses. Its gardens surround the building turning the farmhouse into a magical enclave. The house has had illustrious owners such as the Mayor of Alacant Eleuterio Maisonnave y Cutayar in the late nineteenth century.

This estate built in the late 19^th century is located in avenida de Alicante, No. 20, west of the town of Sant Joan, about 500 metres from the Monastery of Santa Faz. El Jabalí was originally used as an agricultural farmhouse and it was later set up as housing, although maintaining part of the land as a garden. From 1972 to 2017, the restaurant El Jabalí, specialized in French cuisine, was located. It was in 2017, when, after 45 years working, the restaurant closed its doors due to the retirement of its owner.

The former farmhouse of Lo de Bellon is located in the district of Fabraquer Nord. In the early twentieth century, the farm was subdivided into three parts to be distributed among the heirs of the property. Each one of them is named after depending of the location: Belon de Dins (inside), de Fora (outside) or d’Enmig (middle). Belon de Dins is the main and oldest building. It may have been built in the eighteenth century. It preserves the two-storey cellar on the lower floor and a drying room on the top floor.

This solid building of the nineteenth century is located in the district of El Salt, between Avinguda (Avenue) Miguel Hernández and the Camí (road) de Palmeretes. The complex is sheltered by pine trees, melia azedaraches and palm trees from its own garden and from its neighbouring Finca Palmeretes. The house is rectangular and has two floors and a tower. The rooms intended for public life are located on the ground floor, organized around a lobby with two midsections, linked by a large straight space. Private offices are located on the top floor.

Vil·la Antonia is not a house, Vil·la Antonia is the House. If we ask a child to paint us a house, it will be very difficult to find another dwelling that fits it so much. The reason is that the composition of this building with a gabled roof, oculus in the gable end and the symmetry of its windows, make this house an archetype. In addition, the building has typical elements of Alacant like a terracotta facade, ceramic decoration, flat tiles and a wonderful garden. It is located on Carrer (street) Antoni 82, also known as Vereda de Sant Joan.

There was a time when crossing the large gate giving access to this noble villa was something that could not be taken lightly. The property of the sixteenth century, belonged to the illustrious family of Counts of Casa Rojas and Marquess of the Bosch. In the nineteenth century, when aristocrats and the upper class sought peace and delight in the fields of Alacant, its owner was the Marquess of Algorfa. Today however, next to the door where honourable carriages passed through before, we find a warning sign: DANGER, ruined building, entry forbidden.

Following the ancient Vereda de Sant Joan, we find La Pinada, located on Carrer Sant Antoni 74. The Pinada is a Swiss-type residential dwelling. Built in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century. It has been restored to accommodate some of the facilities of the Residence of the Railway Pensioners. Its name comes from the majestic pine forest located in its garden -trees that compete with the height of the skylight- located in the centre of the house.

In Sant Antoni Street 88, also known as Vereda de Sant Joan, only a few meters from the Cultural Centre, we find the Residence of Railway Pensioners, whose main objective is to meet the social and health needs of the residents. Currently it is no longer necessary to have belonged to this group to stay here. It is a unique building, designed by architect Francisco Alonso y Martos, which was built in 1955. It has characteristics of rationalist architecture, although this movement appeared in Europe much earlier, in the second decade of the twentieth century.

It is located in the district of Les Moletes, one of the few areas of Fabraquer Sud that still maintains active farming. The building dates from the late sixteenth century or early seventeenth century. Originally, it was a typical farmhouse of the Alacant’s Horta (Cropland) that after being remodelled several times became a residential dwelling. The complex has a chapel located next to Camí Reial de la Vila Joiosa, also called Vereda de Benimagrell. It preserves the cellar and an important extension of citrus with a large irrigation pond.

There was a time when this landscape had fields of grapevines and olive trees, water lines sought terrain slopes providing for irrigation and drainage, high trees cut unfavourable winds along the edge of the property, roads articulated the territory and the towers were the stone guardians of the old world. However, today modern urbanism with its asphalt roads erased the traces of that orchard, although sometimes the drawing pen does not find a way to assimilate certain remnants of territory, preserving fragments of ancient treasures like the Finca La Providència or Candal.

It is located in the district of El Campet in the old Camí de l’Alqueria del Canonge heading towards the sea, nowadays called Camí del Campet. The building may date from the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Originally it was a typical farmhouse of Alacant’s Horta (Cropland) that after several remodelling became a residential dwelling. Little remains of the vast fields of the farm, although you can still see the irrigation furrows accompanied by some isolated carob or olive tree. In the eastern edge an old irrigation pond is still preserved.

It is located in the district of Santa Facebooked, next to the old Colefruse factory. It is a building dating from the seventeenth century. In the past it was a farmhouse but it eventually became a residential dwelling where a family of Swedish origin lived in the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries. The exterior of this property has arable fields, now in disuse. Recreational gardens are separated into two levels by a wide staircase of stone steps of neoclassical style. The farm preserves the elements that served to support the wine barrels.

Near the Monastery of Santa Facebooked there is a stunning estate of the late eighteenth century called Bona Vista because from there both the beach and the countryside could be seen. We know that in the mid-nineteenth century it was owned by the Count of Pinohermoso III, Juan Roca de Togores y Carrasco and his wife Ines Sanz de Valles y Montserrat. After the death of the Count, the estate was bought by Hugo Prytz Carter and renamed Casa Prytz. The sculptures and fountain of the eighteenth century that nowadays decorate the Parc Canalejas in Alacant, belonged to the majestic gardens of the estate.

It is located in the district of Fabraquer, by the camí Reial de la Vila Joiosa. There is evidence that Finca Caputxo already existed in the seventeenth century, but it could have been built before. Since then it has been the farmhouse of the Barons of Finestrat. The wines and silks harvested in this farm had such fame that they were exposed as worthy items of Alacant at the Great Exhibition in London in1851, where several bottles of malmsey, fondilló and aloque wines, along with a skein of silk, were offered by the selfsame fifth Baron of Finestrat.

It is a building that it dates from the seventeenth or eighteenth century and is located in the district of El Campet. Originally it was a typical farmhouse of Alacant’s Horta (Cropland) that after several remodelling became a residential dwelling. The property is divided by a small hall that connects the cellar and the old stable; the staircase leading to the upper floor is also located there. Wooden boards with quartered curved forms, possibly from the eighteenth century stand out among the ornamental elements.

Nou Nazaret was destined to be one of the most promising neighbourhoods of Sant Joan d’Alacant. It was planned to build 900 homes, 200 of them social housing, 45,000 m2 of green areas and 45,000 m2 destined to expand the Miguel Hernandez University . However the economic crisis and endless disagreements between the Council and the developer led to the paralysation of the works. Currently, while steps are taken to undertake the completion of the area, walking around the ghost neighbourhood that surrounds this stunning estate of the sixteenth century is an overwhelming experience.

We find this majestic building hidden among pine trees and ficus. Finca Mançaneta is located on Calle Hernán Cortés 1. This is an important building of the eighteenth century with strong features of the nineteenth century as the result of remodelling, possibly by the architect Enrique Sánchez Sedeño. It was the residence of Antonio Campos y Domenech and his wife  Juana Carrera Bellón. During the Civil War, it was used as a nursery of the University School Foundation. Its gardens, with numerous ancient trees that are now part of the town’s most beautiful public park, stand out.

La Concepció is located on Carrer (street) Hernán Cortés, 8. The complex formed by this picturesque eighteenth-century building, along with the wonderful gardens that surround it, is undoubtedly one of the most attractive places in Sant Joan d’Alacant. The gardens have become a public park, a bucolic enclave where you can contemplate the monumentality of its trees and enjoy a good walk. The name of the residence comes from its owner, Concepción Pascual de Pobil Estellés, daughter of the fifth Baron of Finestrat born in 1832 in Sant Joan in Finca Caputxo.

It is a building that dates from the sixteenth or seventeenth century located in the district of la Passió. Originally it was a typical farmhouse of Alacant’s Horta (Cropland) that became a residential dwelling after several remodelling. The owner of the residence in the early twentieth century was Pérez Gosálbez Teodomiro. It is a remodelled two-floor house that still maintains its original structure. We find the typical element of these houses: a large hall with a three-centered arch.

Finca Villós dates from the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries but it was subsequently remodelled. It is located in the district of Lloixa and on the road of the same name.  It is known that in the early twentieth century the owner of the residence was the widow of the Count of Mira and it is said that in the early nineteenth century the Marquess de Rio-Florido was born in this house. Other rooms of the construction period are the old cellar, rectangular and divided into two mid-sections, and the old stables.

It is located in the district of Santa Faç. It was built in the late nineteenth century by Francisco Fajardo Guardiola. Typologically, it is a residential dwelling. This building complex consists of three attached spaces that belong to different construction stages, the central part corresponding to the initial phase. The structure is the living image of a nineteenth-century Swiss house as it has a very sloping roof and it is decorated with ceramic roof ridges. The extensive garden has been modified.

It is located at the end of Carrer Capiscol, which receives the name from a defunct farm. It is a rectangular farm in which the masonry arch of the lobby and the distribution of the facade stand out. It is believed that dates from the eighteenth century, although it underwent remodelling in the nineteenth century. The central part of the house only has a floor but the side annexes present one more floor. In these rooms there are bedrooms and living rooms. Outside, we can see the chapel dedicated to Santa Rita de Casia.

Vil·la Marco is located in the nearby town of El Campello, in the district of Fabraquer. It is believed that in the same farm there was a manor of some importance as it gave its name to one of the traditional rout Camí de Marco. The farm was built in 1899 by Manuel Chápuli, but it has also been attributed to José Vicente Sanafe. In 1944 the housing underwent internal remodelling by the municipal architect of Alacant Miguel López González. Its gardens and orchard remain the attraction for its visit.

The Morote Farm is located in Vistahermosa, very close to Sant Joan d’Alacant. It was built in 1690, and it is estimated that it originally had an area of 15 hectares. The farm is mentioned by the Chronicler Viravens in the last third of the nineteenth century. At that time it belonged to Domingo Morelló y Segura. It retains the wine cellar that has two cups and a mill. The current owner, Tomas, has exhibited the tools for agricultural and irrigating purposes in the Orchard. Finca Morote is one of the few estates where crops are still grown, farming cereals and grapes, continuing with the production of wine and oil.