Art Is Life At Hacienda De Abajo In La Palma, Spain

There’s a room in Hacienda de Abajo, a small luxury hotel on the Canary Island of La Palma, that has plenty of space and glorious views over the banana plantations and the Atlantic below. It easily could have become a premium suite, but instead, it’s an atelier for art restoration.

That should tell you something about the priorities of owner Enrique Luis Larroque del Castillo-Olivares, part of one of the most important families on the island and a passionate collector of art. Ever since he transformed one of his family’s 17th-century homes into the hotel, in 2012, he has also used it as a showplace to display his family’s some 1,300 pieces of art and antiques, which they have been collecting since the 16th century.

“It’s a new concept of a hotel,” says Larroque del Castillo-Olivares. “You don’t have 17th-, 18th- or even 19th-century beds in most hotels.” Let alone Murano chandeliers, striking 16th-century paintings of St. Agatha with her breasts on a plate, 19th-century Balinese beds in the gardens, original van Dycks in the dining room, or chapels that date from 1646 full of Flemish tapestries, Chinese porcelains, and paintings from Mexico, France and elsewhere in Europe. Nor a new work representing St. Michael on the exterior of that chapel, commissioned from one of the most respected urban artists in Spain.

The collection is a reflection not only of the connoisseurship of Larroque del Castillo-Olivares and his family but also the history of the Canaries (a history in which his Flemish ancestors obviously played a part—the estate, in Tazacorte, started out as the island’s richest sugar plantation). Along with the sugar production, the islands—particularly La Palma, one of the westernmost parts of the archipelago—were a crossroads between Europe and the New World, an important stop on the trade routes between Flanders, Andalusia and the West Indies.

Larroque del Castillo-Olivares says his collecting methodologies where “patience and stubbornness.” Some of it came from the family’s other houses; other parts were from “ten years of waiting for licenses.” Now, he says, it’s one of the most important collections of art in a hotel anywhere. Historic Hotels Worldwide backed him up on this last year, placing Hacienda de Abajo second on a list (behind a hotel in Venice full of contemporary works) of historic hotels with outstanding art collections.

He remembers that at the beginning, when they were still trying to find places for all the pieces, the designer asked, “It’s a little excessive, don’t you think?” He stuck with his gorgeously maximalist vision. In the end, that same designer said, “You were absolutely right."

(Side note: Larroque del Castillo-Olivares also committed to Canarian gastronomy. The casual La Salita emphasizes traditional fare like tiny black potatoes served with green and red sauces, while in the elegant El Sitio—where that van Dyck is on display—chef José Alberto holds a Repsol Sun periodically invites chefs from other countries to explore the islands’ culinary history, especially the contributions made by all the European traders who passed through.)

From the nearly beginning, the hotel has employed art restorers and a full-time curator-archivist, whose first project was listing everything in a five-volume catalog. Now he works in that top-floor space, restoring antiques in the family’s collections and new ones that they acquire.

At the same time, Larroque del Castillo-Olivares is adamant that his 32-room hotel should feel like a home (as my favorite kind of luxury hotel often does). Guests are expected to sleep in the 17th-century beds, sit in the antique chairs and appreciate the refracted light from the chandeliers. One of the best suites occupies the former kitchen in the main house, its massive fire turned into a vitrine for art and a grand, canopied bed commanding attention in the center of the room.

Even in the new wings of the property, the doors, columns and window frames largely date from the 17th century, when they were parts of other residences. Larroque del Castillo-Olivares’s mother started collecting them at a time when such things were washing up on the beach, having been thrown into the ocean in the name of modernity. Now, of course, we value them—not only a beautiful patina but also sustainability bona fides—even when all the varying dimensions create far more work for the architects. “It’s a different, crazy way of working,” says the owner.

The gardens were also a different, crazy project. The estate had them until the 18th century, but then they disappeared. Larroque del Castillo-Olivares’s brought them back and then some. He spent three years buying exotic plants from all over the world—everything went through quarantine and got governmental approval—and worked with esteemed French botanists to create “an informal garden full of colors and scents.”

But for people who know their plants, it’s even more impressive. There’s a rare palm tree that no one on the island can classify. They’ve sent seems to the leading expert at London’s Kew Gardens.

And the nearby volcano that erupted for three straight months in 2021—an event that generated headlines that scared people away from La Palma—turned out to be a good thing for the gardens. Everything was covered in ash, but once the cleaning was done, the soil had found an excellent new fertilizer. Now everything is thriving, and the director of the botanical garden in Tenerife has called it one of the best gardens in the Canaries.