El Capricho

Listen first. Somewhere above you, the wind moves through the trees on the hillside. Underfoot, gravel crunches softly on the path. Then your eye catches the colour: rows of green ceramic tiles, and between them, small yellow sunflowers, repeated again and again across the walls. The light changes as clouds pass over the Cantabrian coast, and the tiles shift from bright glaze to deep, wet green. This is El Capricho, the summer villa that a young Antoni Gaudí designed for this quiet town in northern Spain.

The name means something like 'the whim' or 'the caprice'. It fits. The building looks playful, almost like a toy, set against the green slopes of Comillas. Construction took place in the early 1880s, and it was finished around 1885. At that time, Gaudí was barely in his thirties. He was not yet the architect of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. He was a talented designer still finding his voice, and this house is one of the places where you can hear that voice for the first time.

The client was Máximo Díaz de Quijano, a man who had made his fortune in the Americas. People in this region had a name for men like him: 'indianos', emigrants who left for Cuba or Latin America and came back rich. Many of them built grand homes in their hometowns to show their success. Díaz de Quijano also had family ties to the Marquis of Comillas, the powerful shipping magnate who did so much to shape this town. That connection helps explain how a Catalan architect came to build here.

Here is the first surprise. Gaudí almost never came to Comillas while the house was being built. He sent detailed plans and models from Barcelona. The work on site was directed by another architect, Cristóbal Cascante, a friend and colleague. So the house you see is a kind of long-distance collaboration. Gaudí imagined it far away, and other hands turned those drawings into brick, stone, and tile on this hillside.

Now look up at the tower. It rises above the entrance, slim and round, wrapped in green tiles and topped with a small, open crown. Many visitors compare it to a minaret, the tower of a mosque. That is not an accident. In these years Gaudí was drawn to Mudéjar style, the Spanish tradition that blends Christian building with Islamic decoration. You can see it in the brick patterns, the glazed tiles, and the slender columns that hold the tower above the doorway.

Those columns form a small porch at the base of the tower. Stand beneath it for a moment. The tower seems to float on four short pillars, and you walk directly under its weight to reach the door. It is a strange feeling, both heavy and light. Gaudí liked to play with expectations like this. A tower is usually solid at the bottom. Here, the bottom is open air.

Now, the sunflowers. They appear in band after band across the facade, raised from the surface of the tiles. Their leaves are green, and their petals are yellow. The sunflower turns to follow the sun, and that idea runs through the whole design. The house was arranged so that its rooms follow the sun's path through the day. Morning rooms face the morning light, and evening rooms catch the evening glow. Nature was not only decoration for Gaudí. It was a plan for living.

The owner loved two things above all: music and plants. Gaudí built both passions into the house. Inside, there was a glass conservatory, a winter garden where plants could grow in the soft northern light. And music appears in the details. In the stained glass windows, look for small birds and insects that seem to play musical instruments. One bird sits at a keyboard. These are small, humorous touches, easy to miss if you hurry.

Here is the second surprise, and it is a favourite of visitors. Some of the sliding sash windows were fitted with counterweights designed to make musical sounds. When the window moved up or down, the mechanism produced notes, like small bells. Think about that. Simply opening a window to let in the sea air became a little performance. For a man who loved music, the house itself could sing back to him.

The story has a sad side. Máximo Díaz de Quijano did not enjoy his villa for long. He died very soon after the house was completed, so he barely lived in it at all. For years afterwards, the building passed through different hands. It fell into neglect for a long period, and later it was used for other purposes, including as a restaurant. Today it has been restored and opened to visitors as a museum, so the rooms can be seen again.

As you walk through, notice the materials. There is warm brick in reddish and ochre tones. There is stone at the base, giving the house a solid footing on the slope. The ceramic tiles add colour, and iron details appear on balconies and railings. The interior spaces are not huge. This is a summer house, not a palace. But each room has its own character, with carved wood, decorated ceilings, and windows that frame the garden outside.

Step back now and look at the house within its setting. El Capricho is not alone on this hill. Nearby stands the Sobrellano Palace, built for the Marquis of Comillas, with its chapel and family pantheon. On the opposite rise you can see the large former Pontifical University. Together these buildings made Comillas a meeting point for Catalan architects in the late nineteenth century. That is why a small Cantabrian town has such an unusual skyline.

Before you leave, pause in the garden and look back at the tower one more time. Watch how the green tiles catch the light, and how the sunflowers repeat around the walls. Listen to the trees again, and perhaps the distant sound of the town below. A young architect drew all of this far away in Barcelona, for a man who loved music and flowers. As you walk down the path, keep an eye on the windows. You might imagine them playing their quiet notes.