Set on the northeastern coast of Spain, Cadaqués was once an isolated fishing village before it rose to prominence in the 19th century as a summer hotspot for Barcelona bourgeois. Over the years, it’s been home to Salvador Dalí and drawn all manner of artists—from Matisse, Picasso, and Duchamp to Mick Jagger and Shakira.

In the 1950s, a group of modern architects were equally beguiled, among them, Federico Correa and Alfonso Milá of the notable Barcelona firm Correa Milá Arquitectes. Correa and Milá would later be known for projects like the rehabilitation of Plaça Reial in Barcelona in 1985 and the Montjuïc Olympic Ring in 1984, but before that, they designed houses, many of which are in Cadaqués.

Two of these homes have important place in history: Casa Villavecchia, an adaptation of a vernacular fisherman’s house in town, and Casa Rumeu, a dwelling set farther out in the surrounding hills.

For Casa Rumeu, completed in 1963, Correa Milá Arquitectes departed from the traditional whitewashed buildings found in town, and looked instead to the agricultural walls in the surrounding countryside. “The town is completely surrounded by these drystone walls built over decades and decades for the olive trees,” says architect Juan Gurrea Rumeu of Gr-os Architects. “This house is surrounded by these massive gardens of stones, so they used the local stone to build it.”

While the material was traditional, and easy for local builders at the time to work with, the home’s plan was more avant-garde: it consists of three conjoined hexagons, with nary a wall at a 90-degree angle. “What’s very special about this house is that there’s this tension between building very low-tech, with local and traditional materials, but then you see this more experimental intention in the plan,” says Rumeu.

Before: Living and Dining Room

After: Living and Dining Room

In 2024, Rumeu wrapped up a delicate remodel of the building for important clients: his family. Rumeu’s grandparents originally commissioned the house—Milá was his grandmother’s brother—and it has since been purchased by one of his cousins, a financier who lives in Barcelona with his family, and has many fond memories of time spent there.

“I have strong roots in Cadaqués, having spent my summers there since childhood—a tradition in my mother’s family for generations,” says the owner, whose earliest memory at the house is eating meals outside and watching his grandmother carefully peel a fig for him in the garden. “Purchasing my grandparent’s home was a way to continue this tradition, as well as preserve the houses’ family heritage.”

The brief for the project was to modernize the kitchen and bathrooms and improve the mechanical systems, while “preserving the house’s original style and aesthetics as much as possible,” says the owner. They also wanted to lightly expand the sleeping accommodations. “We never tried to impose a certain architecture to be on top of the existing one,” says Rumeu. “It was rather about understanding the value of the original house and improving some of the original details.”

After taking careful inventory, the team removed finishes to install updated mechanical systems, and Rumeu addressed the combined living and dining room in the most outlying hexagon. The open space is capped with an exposed wood structure with custom metal attachments, which didn’t need any work—although the team refinished the floors and touched up the original built-in shelving and couches.

Before: Kitchen

After: Kitchen

Elsewhere, Rumeu borrowed space from some areas to enlarge others. For instance, part of a large, little-used coat closet was given to the main bathroom, and the kitchen pantry was reduced to allow the refrigerator to be pushed further back, out of the main walkway. “It’s very narrow in there,” says Rumeu. Adds the owner: “Embedding the refrigerating units into the wall significantly improved the kitchen’s breadth and overall feel.”

They completely overhauled the bathrooms, since they’d already been remodeled in the 2000s. Rumeu added a custom, half-hexagon-shaped marble sink that follows the angled walls of the building, which proved challenging at times. “Even the shower is crooked,” says Rumeu. “We could have made it a 90-degree angle, but we understood the original intention for the house, and there is not a single 90-degree angle.”

Before: Bathroom

After: Bathroom

After: Bathroom

When it came time to add an additional bedroom suite, Rumeu got to play: he adapted an existing stone agricultural building for domestic use by first digging out the floor to create the appropriate ceiling height and then carving out a window and door in the facade. The opening is outlined with a contrasting concrete lintel and post to mark the intervention.

Next, Rumeu wove in details from the main house: the green tile in the bathroom echoes the tile in the kitchen, and the floor is covered in the same irregular slate pavers used in the garden. “We wanted it to be connected to the old house through the materiality,” says Rumeu.

After: Bedroom

Now, the owners relish summer days spent dining outside, reading under the olive trees, relaxing at the beach, or listening to music in the living room. (The hexagonal shape, high ceilings, and wood structure make the acoustics particularly good, says the owner.)

While the project was guided by strict restrictions, as the house is listed as a historic building, Rumeu was also sensitive to the family’s attachment. “It has a sentimental value,” says Rumeu. “You don’t want it to look different. You want it to have the same atmosphere.”

The project also proved to be a good exercise for Rumeu’s architectural practice. “It’s interesting just knowing that you can design without a straight angle,” muses Rumeu. “When you’re starting a new design, you always think that the straight angle is the best one. But sometimes, when you’re forced to work without straight angles, interesting things happen.”

Before: Agricultural Building

After: Suite

More Before & After stories:

You’d Never Guess This Tiny Oasis Is in the Middle of São Paulo

Three Sisters Give an Abandoned Portuguese Farmhouse a Vibrant Revival

A Tiny Copenhagen Flat Now Hosts DJs, Art Openings, and Lots of Friends

Project Credits:

Architecture: Gr-os Architects / @juangurrearumeu

Local architect: David Amorós

Builder: Gerard Estragués

Fabrics and Textiles: Dalla Povere

Appears In

Before & After: In Spain, an Architect Restores an Iconic Home Built by His Grandparents