The story of the house
On this page you will find a summary of the history of the house, its architecture and design.
The original plans for the house were drawn up by a famous architect, Alberto Ponis, whose biography can be found below. This architect is renowned for his ability to depict, imagine and conceptualize a perfect marriage between nature and the house, and to position the windows like large paintings so as to retain only the most spectacular and impregnating views.
Initially, the shell of the house was built, but work was halted for several years because of a neighbor dispute between the previous owner and another owner who was prepared to go to any administrative lengths to block progress and ensure that there would be no new neighbors . Tired of this legal battle lasting almost a decade, the former owner got persuaded, after more than three years of talks and negotiations, to sell the house to the current owner.
While Alberto Ponis's architecture was characteristic in its ability to highlight the most remarkable views from the plot, his principle was to create a house that was totally open on the sea side but pretty closed on the street side. This approach was materialized by planning the construction, along the street, of a high wall in front of the main bay window and the creation of a limited number of quite small windows on the same side of the house.
The current owner, with another renowned architect, had a different approach and a different concept in mind. In addition to retaining the elegant, slender appearance of the house, major changes were made to the initial design, in which the new guiding principle became to play on transparency and the building's through-views, while further enhancing the structure's sleek, slender appearance.
The windows on the street side were therefore increased in number and size to create, others among, the large bay windows you see today, and a numbof them were moved to create the alignments that allow seeing through the entire house, which then becomes the real link between the rocks, the stones and the sea.
We hope that you will enjoy the current design of the house, that you will feel and savor the calm, serenity and tranquility of the place, and that the architecture described above will make your stay unforgettable.
Alberto Ponis: inhabiting the cliff
Costa Paradiso, located in northern Sardinia, is the starting point
point to understand Alberto Ponis’ architecture. It’s the ‘60s when the young architect decided to get involved in designing a villa in Palau, after significant liaisons within the London Modernism. It’s from this turning point that sparked his idea of launching the studio in Sardinia and devoting himself entirely to the holiday villas field.
We are referring to almost two-hundred houses arranged in complete harmony with the surrounding area, distinguished
by millennial rocks and granite cliffs. Precisely these latter ones, inexhaustible sources of inspiration, are consistent in
Ponis' work. "When the terrain is crossed by 50% of various rocks and on the other half is clean, obviously most of my colleagues
would put the house in the clean part, to get rid of troubles[...].
“I usually decide to partially construct on the hard part, without touching the rocks and just putting the building on them, without destroying them, incorporating them in the walls instead, as if I was looking for a kind of kinship, an ancient
belonging to the place [...]. Houses cling to the rocks; they become a support element and part of it [...] "They are like the wrinkled skin of a prehistoric animal, and this can be felt".
This is the wording of Ponis in the video interview byCorrado Cattinari, The Right Rock, where he tells of his modern point of view and relationship to the landscape in front of a plastic model of his houses.
His architectural approach, respectful of the place's spirit and culture, surely stems from a deep knowledge of the topography and morphology of the land.
Ponis shares how his research is undertaken by exploring the island as if it was a newfound and undiscovered continent, taking photos of fields, houses and quaint towns. His main focus is on the distinctive breeding facilities, known as “Stazzo”, where northern Sardinians have led their rural life for centuries.
Such process is superbly laid out in The Inhabited Pathway, The Built Work of Alberto Ponis in Sardinia, edited by Sebastiano Brandolini and published by Park Books, a mongraph that engages the reader with an enthralling journey through his life, education and philosophy. Through a perfect synthesis, the volume documents the best works constructed on the island from 1965 to 1998: eight mansions skillfully described through historical photos and authentic planimetry.
