In Spain, Incorporating the Landscape Into the Design

Again, no offense to Peru, but Ibiza does have a certain international cache and again, it's western Europe so this price seems a little more justifiable to me. Cool house, too-- check out the trees in the living room and no, if the ivy growing outside your house in Savannah has infiltrated the stucco and come inside, that doesn't have the cool factor, that's just bad maintenance.

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By JESSICA DONATI
Published: February 2, 2011

IBIZA, SPAIN — When Enrique Polanco, an art fair promoter in Madrid, decided to build a second home on this island some 100 miles from the Spanish mainland, he said he set out “to escape from real life in Madrid.”

It’s no wonder he took his inspiration from the fictional character Peter Pan and named his home Never Never Land.

The design, created by Andrés Jacque, an architect with his own firm in Madrid, took two years to create. The primary objective was to have as minimal impact to the surrounding landscape as possible.

So the home, which sits on a steep slope, was set on stilts, following the contours of the land, as opposed to cutting into the slope to make a flat plot. In addition, no trees were felled during construction. Instead they were incorporated into the interior of the home, with tree trunks running through the floor and ceiling and popping out the roof.

“The building site manager thought it was a ridiculous, romantic idea to make his life more difficult,” Mr. Jacque said, referring to the challenge of incorporating the trees into the design.

Construction began in 2007 and took two years and 500,000 euros (about $685,000) to build the five-bedroom home, where Mr. Polanco now spends weekends and free time between art fairs.

The house is split into three units, or cabins, as Mr. Polanco calls them: one houses the kitchen, living room and main bedrooms; the other two are for guests. The aim was to create the feel of cabins in the forest, independent from one another, but linked by common living areas, Mr. Polanco said.

The cabins are constructed of metal frames topped with concrete to keep them cool in the summer.

The railings were painted yellow-green — “the color of the youngest leaves in the valley surrounding the home,” Mr. Polanco says — while the frame and stilts raising the cabins above the ground were painted purple, to convey a sense of fun, he added.

All three cabins have enormous glass windows, exposing the inside to a breathtaking view of the woods tumbling down to the beach.

The windows were bought in Madrid and driven to Valencia in a truck, where they were loaded onto a boat for the island. “Some materials and furnishings were impossible to find here,” Mr. Polanco said. “That’s the hardest part about being on an island.”

Inside, the walls are painted sky blue. “We even got a machine to measure the blueness of the sky, which we tried our best to replicate by mixing paints,” Mr. Polanco said.

The space below the home continues the theme of Never Never Land, with a recreational room complete with a ping pong table, a dart board, large speakers for when Mr. Polanco holds parties, and access to an infinity pool.

Next up for Never Never Land is the installation of another infinity pool, but with a built-in wave machine.

Be sure to check out the slideshow of additional photos on original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/greathomesanddestinations/03gh-location.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1296743936-2wcmcfOxas1UuBL7bkyx9Q