Location: PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain.

Architect: OHLAB.

Can Bordoy – Grand House & Garden is a small hotel located in the heart of Palma de Mallorca. The hotel has 24 rooms, a garden, swimming pool, spa, and panoramic terrace. The property is a complete renovation of a 2,500 m2 abandoned building that had been heavily modified throughout its more than 500 years of history. The hotel has been developed by businessman Mikael Hall and his family. The garden is one of the most distinctive elements of the property, not only because of its size but also because of the richness and antiquity of the existing vegetation. The hotel has been designed to evoke the experience of visiting a house rather than a hotel. The project carefully preserves the romantic and decadent atmosphere found in the building and is deliberately contrasted with interventions and elements from different epochs. The architects have sought a project that does not pretend to hide the heterodox eclecticism of the existing building, but instead conciliates and celebrates the different layers of history and clearly highlights the new interventions that have been necessary to give the house its new use. A series of architectural strategies were designed and developed throughout the building as a collection of distinctive contemporary interventions in dialogue with the existing building. The furniture is a very important part of the project. The eclecticism of the architecture is reflected in the selection of furniture with pieces from very different eras and origins. Antiquarian pieces coexist with contemporary furniture carefully selected and with bespoke furniture designed specifically for Can Bordoy. Lastly, on the building foundations, we find the Spa Experience. Surrounded by original stone walls from the XII century, brutalist structural reinforcements of exposed concrete, and delicate natural stone finishes, a journey of water sensations begins at different temperatures following the millenary Mediterranean bathing culture.

Photo credit: JOSÉ HEVIA.