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Cerdeiras House Hotel
Cerdeiras House Hotel
Ponte de Lima, Viana do Castelo District, Portugal
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Cerdeiras House Hotel
Ponte de Lima, Viana do Castelo District, Portugal
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2025
SIZE
5000 sqft - 10,000 sqft
Erected in 1773 on the foundations of a chapel dedicated to Saint Gregory the Great (dating from the early 17th century), the Sanctuary of Senhor do Socorro remains one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in the Alto Minho region. Situated on the slopes of the Labruja Mountain Range, neighbouring the the Portuguese Way of Saint James and commanding wide views over the Labruja River valley, the Cerdeiras House Hotel inhabits this territory and shares part of its history with the Sanctuary.
The house as it stands today is the result of successive, undocumented cycles of construction, abandonment, reconstruction, and transformation. The original core, with elements dated to 1747, would have been a simple, single-storey parallelepiped structure, whose presence can still be discerned in the surviving façades, carefully built in a combination of granite and schist that reflects the site's particular geology.
The built ensemble develops from that primitive core: a structure representative of a rural architecture with agricultural roots, yet also displaying a richness and dignity that sets it apart from its immediate context.
Like so many buildings in the Portuguese rural landscape, it grew organically, both in footprint and height, through successive extensions. It was reconstructed once again during the first half of the 20th century, by then incorporating a reinforced concrete portico structure internally, maintaining the previously existing volumetry (by then in ruins), and forming an L-shaped body enclosing a courtyard with access from the street.
Of the original construction, only parts of the façades survive, yet within these, there remain elements which, by their nature and finish, reflect the building’s former status as the property of the Rector of the Sanctuary.
The rehabilitation of the Cerdeiras House and its adaptation to a hotel programme therefore required distinct approaches, respecting the past without mythologising it, in a coexistence of different times, uses, and memories, dispersed throughout various parts of the built fabric.
The reinstatement (albeit simplified and clearly distinct from speculative restoration) of traditional elements that had since disappeared (such as skirtings, roof coverings, window frames and shutters) on the surviving façade planes sought to enhance the pre-existing structure, minimising distractions caused by later additions.
Simultaneously, partially lost components (such as the granary) were reconstructed. These were reinterpreted in a way that directly references their former appearance without creating ambiguity as to the time of the intervention.
Finally, the newly built volumes that complement the pre-existing constructions (addressing both the spatial and performance needs of the new programme) are also clearly contemporary in character. They develop horizontally in a simplified volumetry that remains subordinate to the original structures, allowing these to assert themselves through contrast.
The organisation of the built complex is rooted in the principles of the site, re-establishing the link between the house and the granary along a pre-existing wall, from which the connections to the new bedroom wing are drawn.
The former courtyard becomes the main living room of the house, while the outbuildings are set behind granite retaining walls, echoing the solutions traditionally employed across the House’s terrain. The successive terraces are connected by the introduction of occasional staircases.
Between the terraces of the house and the granite swimming pool (a memory of the Minho irrigation tanks) unfolds a small auditorium, a place from which to contemplate the sunset.
The entrance, now made through the old gate of the courtyard, acts as the ensemble’s calling card.
The large opening is reinterpreted as a domestic-scale doorway, in which references to the vernacular architecture of the Alto Minho (such as the namoradeiras window side seats, timber slatting reminiscent of traditional granaries, or copper sulphate pigmented paints) are tested to produce, sharing the same language, a new design.
Beyond this threshold, the visitor is welcomed by a vertical spiral plane that organises circulation and filters views, protecting the heart of the house: a room that preserves the experience of an outdoor patio, defined by a patterned hydraulic tile floor and a large skylight, inscribing the path of the sun (and, at night, the moonlight and starlit skies of the Minho interior) into the core of the space.
Climbing the stair, governed by that same vertical plane, one reaches, at the top, a wide opening offering an unimpeded view of the Sanctuary and surrounding tree canopy, flooding the space with light filtered through the foliage at daybreak.
The Hotel’s social spaces are organised on the ground floor, which includes, within the pre-existing house, the living room, dining room, and a small winter room. These are complemented by an accessible bedroom, a laundry room, a wine cellar, and a bathroom.
Following a new corridor that links the house to the reconstructed granary, one finds the kitchen, occupying the ground floor of that structure. Though of contemporary construction, the kitchen employs materials, details and design choices that evoke the popular architecture of the Minho (cupboards, pink marble, hand-made tiles) with memory here serving as a constructive material.
On the upper floor of the granary, a dining area complements the kitchen and opens to the valley to the south, protected by a slatted timber screen that filters views and regulates solar gain.
This reconstruction reproduces a traditional structural system, with oak beams and joists supporting a chestnut floor, and the same solution (with treated pine boarding under roof tiles, now including insulation and waterproofing) applied in the roof.
The bedrooms are thus located on the upper floor.
Within the pre-existing house are a large suite and two further bedrooms. Behind the surviving façades, one finds high skirtings, with simple details but clearly inspired by typologies common to houses of this kind, and timber frames and shutters following the same logic. The roof, like that of the granary, recovers the vernacular construction system of the region. In these spaces, traditional details intersect with contemporary elements (such as recessed, minimal skirtings in the new partitions) in a smooth, seamless transition.
The corridor leading to the upper floor of the granary culminates in a threshold space marked by an outdoor patio framing an olive tree. This patio distributes circulation between the pre-existing house, the dining space in the granary, and the new bedroom wing.
This new wing houses simple bedrooms where the relationship with the landscape of the Labruja valley emerges as the main protagonist.
The project thus preserves the logic of a fragmented ensemble, composed of autonomous yet interconnected volumes, crowning a terrain shaped by terraces and robust granite walls: a story of overlapping layers, all rooted in the place, its materials, its traditions, and building practices.
The Cerdeiras House Hotel is, therefore, another episode in the long process of reconstruction and adaptation that has shaped the House’s history since its foundation in 1747, another chapter in its legacy of continuity and transformation, of permanence and renewal.
The house as it stands today is the result of successive, undocumented cycles of construction, abandonment, reconstruction, and transformation. The original core, with elements dated to 1747, would have been a simple, single-storey parallelepiped structure, whose presence can still be discerned in the surviving façades, carefully built in a combination of granite and schist that reflects the site's particular geology.
The built ensemble develops from that primitive core: a structure representative of a rural architecture with agricultural roots, yet also displaying a richness and dignity that sets it apart from its immediate context.
Like so many buildings in the Portuguese rural landscape, it grew organically, both in footprint and height, through successive extensions. It was reconstructed once again during the first half of the 20th century, by then incorporating a reinforced concrete portico structure internally, maintaining the previously existing volumetry (by then in ruins), and forming an L-shaped body enclosing a courtyard with access from the street.
Of the original construction, only parts of the façades survive, yet within these, there remain elements which, by their nature and finish, reflect the building’s former status as the property of the Rector of the Sanctuary.
The rehabilitation of the Cerdeiras House and its adaptation to a hotel programme therefore required distinct approaches, respecting the past without mythologising it, in a coexistence of different times, uses, and memories, dispersed throughout various parts of the built fabric.
The reinstatement (albeit simplified and clearly distinct from speculative restoration) of traditional elements that had since disappeared (such as skirtings, roof coverings, window frames and shutters) on the surviving façade planes sought to enhance the pre-existing structure, minimising distractions caused by later additions.
Simultaneously, partially lost components (such as the granary) were reconstructed. These were reinterpreted in a way that directly references their former appearance without creating ambiguity as to the time of the intervention.
Finally, the newly built volumes that complement the pre-existing constructions (addressing both the spatial and performance needs of the new programme) are also clearly contemporary in character. They develop horizontally in a simplified volumetry that remains subordinate to the original structures, allowing these to assert themselves through contrast.
The organisation of the built complex is rooted in the principles of the site, re-establishing the link between the house and the granary along a pre-existing wall, from which the connections to the new bedroom wing are drawn.
The former courtyard becomes the main living room of the house, while the outbuildings are set behind granite retaining walls, echoing the solutions traditionally employed across the House’s terrain. The successive terraces are connected by the introduction of occasional staircases.
Between the terraces of the house and the granite swimming pool (a memory of the Minho irrigation tanks) unfolds a small auditorium, a place from which to contemplate the sunset.
The entrance, now made through the old gate of the courtyard, acts as the ensemble’s calling card.
The large opening is reinterpreted as a domestic-scale doorway, in which references to the vernacular architecture of the Alto Minho (such as the namoradeiras window side seats, timber slatting reminiscent of traditional granaries, or copper sulphate pigmented paints) are tested to produce, sharing the same language, a new design.
Beyond this threshold, the visitor is welcomed by a vertical spiral plane that organises circulation and filters views, protecting the heart of the house: a room that preserves the experience of an outdoor patio, defined by a patterned hydraulic tile floor and a large skylight, inscribing the path of the sun (and, at night, the moonlight and starlit skies of the Minho interior) into the core of the space.
Climbing the stair, governed by that same vertical plane, one reaches, at the top, a wide opening offering an unimpeded view of the Sanctuary and surrounding tree canopy, flooding the space with light filtered through the foliage at daybreak.
The Hotel’s social spaces are organised on the ground floor, which includes, within the pre-existing house, the living room, dining room, and a small winter room. These are complemented by an accessible bedroom, a laundry room, a wine cellar, and a bathroom.
Following a new corridor that links the house to the reconstructed granary, one finds the kitchen, occupying the ground floor of that structure. Though of contemporary construction, the kitchen employs materials, details and design choices that evoke the popular architecture of the Minho (cupboards, pink marble, hand-made tiles) with memory here serving as a constructive material.
On the upper floor of the granary, a dining area complements the kitchen and opens to the valley to the south, protected by a slatted timber screen that filters views and regulates solar gain.
This reconstruction reproduces a traditional structural system, with oak beams and joists supporting a chestnut floor, and the same solution (with treated pine boarding under roof tiles, now including insulation and waterproofing) applied in the roof.
The bedrooms are thus located on the upper floor.
Within the pre-existing house are a large suite and two further bedrooms. Behind the surviving façades, one finds high skirtings, with simple details but clearly inspired by typologies common to houses of this kind, and timber frames and shutters following the same logic. The roof, like that of the granary, recovers the vernacular construction system of the region. In these spaces, traditional details intersect with contemporary elements (such as recessed, minimal skirtings in the new partitions) in a smooth, seamless transition.
The corridor leading to the upper floor of the granary culminates in a threshold space marked by an outdoor patio framing an olive tree. This patio distributes circulation between the pre-existing house, the dining space in the granary, and the new bedroom wing.
This new wing houses simple bedrooms where the relationship with the landscape of the Labruja valley emerges as the main protagonist.
The project thus preserves the logic of a fragmented ensemble, composed of autonomous yet interconnected volumes, crowning a terrain shaped by terraces and robust granite walls: a story of overlapping layers, all rooted in the place, its materials, its traditions, and building practices.
The Cerdeiras House Hotel is, therefore, another episode in the long process of reconstruction and adaptation that has shaped the House’s history since its foundation in 1747, another chapter in its legacy of continuity and transformation, of permanence and renewal.
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