04288 Bédar, Almería, España, Vera, Andalusia

Details :- Reference: ERNR-T312. PRICE €490,000 for a 6 Bed, 4 reception, 4 bath, Country House with net core construction<br /><br />of 432 Sq M set in a plot area of 5131 Sq M. Extras include, Swimming pool with changing<br /><br />facilities and covered Barbecue, full size Tennis Court & Garage/Laundry block.<br /><br />THIS PRICE IS EQUIVALENT TO EURO 1350 PER NET M2 (BEFORE EXTRAS) AND IS<br /><br />VERY COMPETITIVE IN ALMERIA FOR A HOUSE OF THIS QUALITY OF BUILD,<br /><br />FINISH & MATURITY OF FOLIAGE IN SETTING.<br /><br />This property is a spacious, high ceiling, 4 Reception, 6 Bed, 4 Bath + 10 by 5M pool + full<br /><br />size Tennis Court rural “Country House”, situated 15 Km from the Mojacar Coast in Almeria<br /><br />Spain at 400 M above sea level. It is located about 0.5 Km from the traditional Spanish<br /><br />village of Bedar.<br /><br />The concept behind the house, which was constructed in phases twenty years ago, has<br /><br />been to combine traditional Andalusian regional appearance, with Arabesque<br /><br />Mediterranean internal distribution and well insulated/ventilated modern construction in an<br /><br />abundantly shaded setting.<br /><br />This achieves best use of the multi level site orientation, obtains sea, village & hill views<br /><br />from the upper entry level used for the reception rooms and provides maximum shade&<br /><br />sun protection for the lower level bedrooms grouped about a ‘Patio Andaluz’ or courtyard<br /><br />complete with a water fountain feature and flower bed. Both levels benefit from natural<br /><br />cross ventilation to take account of the sea breezes prevalent during the hot summer. The<br /><br />garden has areas of sun, shade and semi shade, suitable for all uses in all seasons.<br /><br />Much use has been made in the finishes of materials in wood, stone & Iron, traditional, to<br /><br />all styles of Mediterranean architecture. These include, wall facing of local ironstone, use of<br /><br />reclaimed antique doors & window grills (reinforced where appropriate) with flooring of both<br /><br />antique &modern hand cut tiles combined with roofs supported by timber taken from old<br /><br />railway sleepers or telephone poles.<br /><br />The overall effect is of a constructed area that sits comfortably on the site; this is reinforced<br /><br />by the retention of four Olive and Algarroba trees, at least 50 years old, to improve shade<br /><br />at the top entry level and a lower entrance, tree, flowering shrub & flower garden, planted<br /><br />twenty years ago, which adds to overall maturity and blends tastefully into a, largely<br /><br />untouched, Spanish rural background.<br /><br />MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON THE PROPERTY.<br /><br />1. Concepts behind the Cortijo Calerica Country House Property.<br /><br />This section will seek to show how the project relates to local tradition and the origins of<br /><br />Mediterranean architecture developed first in the Levant and then imported by the<br /><br />Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties (coming from what later became the Mesopotamian<br /><br />provinces of the Ottoman Empire), via the Maghreb, to Spain during the 500 years the<br /><br />“Moors” ruled, what is now Andalucía. The prime driver to achieve comfort for living in all<br /><br />Mediterranean zones is to construct and align to get the best out of the varied climate<br /><br />conditions. The climate and vegetation in the hills behind the Almeria coast, is very similar<br /><br />to that prevailing above the Umayyad Capital of Damascus, nearby modern Lebanon and<br /><br />much of the areas behind the coast of the Maghreb, in what is now Tunisia, Algeria and<br /><br />Morocco. The Arab invaders of Spain dominated most of this coast (and its agricultural<br /><br />hinterland) as they progressed from the Levant to Andalusia and brought, for the time,<br /><br />advanced cultural ideas, into the then undeveloped regions of contemporary southern<br /><br />Spain, they occupied.<br /><br />Language, medicine, cuisine, architecture and ‘artisanal skills’, are amongst their lasting<br /><br />contributions to Spain. The last two have inspired the design of the Calerica house.<br /><br />The simple and critical concept, derived from this tradition, is to align a house into a site,<br /><br />that naturally protects itself from the elements and increase its user comfort and<br /><br />convenience (over the whole expected range of climatic conditions ) by judicious choice of<br /><br />materials, ventilation, external shade, cooling & heating techniques.<br /><br />The house is owned by an Englishman, who has lived, worked and travelled in most of the<br /><br />areas in the Orient and Africa mentioned above, and has been implemented in<br /><br />collaboration with a Landscape Architect & garden designer, who has lived in Bedar and<br /><br />worked in the area for over 30 years.<br /><br />The alignment of the house is, with views to the south to the sea, to the east to the village<br /><br />and the ‘Campo’ landscape. The best vistas are to be seen, on the upper level from the<br /><br />closed terrace, joined to the drawing room and the semi open terrace leading off the dining<br /><br />room. The house is well protected from strong and sometimes seasonably cold winds, by<br /><br />the steep hill behind and this is reinforced at this level by the very Moorish technique of not<br /><br />having any windows facing north, or any living space directly inside north walls that catch<br /><br />the wind.<br /><br />All the upper floor living space is further insulated by an entrance hall/ woodshed for the<br /><br />drawing room, stairs for the study and a larder for the kitchen. At the lower level, the two<br /><br />bedrooms at the north end of the built up area are behind a natural terrace, protected from<br /><br />damp by an ironstone wall [bedroom 2] and insulated by either a corridor or an internal<br /><br />storage facility [bedroom3]. This insulative effect on the building as a whole is enhanced by<br /><br />all the outer walls being cavity with fiber glass insulation between the outer and inner wall.<br /><br />The closed roof spaces also have insulation.<br /><br />To illustrate both the internal distribution of the property and its alignment on the site, a<br /><br />copy of the Floor and Cadastral plans are included at the end of this description; the<br /><br />photos in Exhibit B also compliment these explanations; in order to place the property in its<br /><br />perspective it also includes, further photographs showing the landscape and vegetation<br /><br />around the village of Bedar.<br /><br />2. Details of layout, materials, construction & room distributions<br /><br />These are all crucial elements in optimising the comfort of people living in the house, given<br /><br />that effective control of the natural factors of Sun, Wind and Shade drive much of the<br /><br />satisfaction people derive from actually living in a particular house, on a year round basis.<br /><br />Cortijo Calerica was designed, by the owner for his use on this intention rather than as a<br /><br />summer and other seasonal holiday home; however, it can of course be used to good<br /><br />effect as such, given its well developed natural ventilation and cooling features.<br /><br />An overall impression of the house is given in Photo [B.1], taken from a road behind, which<br /><br />is slightly higher than the upper entrance road to the house itself. Photo [B.2] features the<br /><br />Tennis court. Both show how the retained, established trees, have been supplemented by<br /><br />the owner planted trees around the Tennis court, the Palm, Yuccas and vine in the shaded<br /><br />back garden plus the conifers along the access road behind the pool/barbecue block Photo<br /><br />[B.3].The latter also highlights the sheltering effect of the hill behind. The key vegetation<br /><br />effect of this accumulation of proximate foliage is to reduce inside summer temperatures<br /><br />generated by surrounding surface radiation and also, to provide a low combustibility<br /><br />evergreen fire break, to protect a potentially vulnerable aspect, given the summer<br /><br />prevailing wind, from the south of the Tennis court.<br /><br />The core construction materials used is cement block, finished with a variety of old/new<br /><br />wood and a similar mix of tiles. Special attention has been given to preventing/minimising<br /><br />direct incidence of sunlight on windows and also ensuring that almost all rooms on both<br /><br />levels enjoy natural cross ventilation. Placing the bedrooms on the ground floor improves<br /><br />insulation against both heat and cold. Another feature that decreases summer temperature<br /><br />is that most ceiling heights exceed 2.8m (2.5m is standard).<br /><br />The distribution concept of the reception floor is that Guests tend to arrive from the upper<br /><br />entrance and move into the drawing room, Photo [B.4] or closed terrace/bar, Photo [B.5] to<br /><br />meet residents coming up the main stairs. The dining room, Photo [B.6] is connected to the<br /><br />open terrace, photo [B.7] with the study joining the two halves of the house. These three<br /><br />main reception rooms are each 30 m2 in floor area, and two of them—The dining room<br /><br />and closed terrace—have open pitched, wooden beamed, traditional country house roofs,<br /><br />over 5m in maximum height. The 24 Sq m Kitchen also has an open pitch & beamed roof.<br /><br />with a round table that seats 4 in one corner, Photo [B 8].<br /><br />On the bedroom level the six bedrooms are grouped into three sets of two, and in the<br /><br />present owners style of occupation, the four bedrooms/three bathrooms facing the west<br /><br />side of the courtyard have been allocated to family use [No’s 3 (p...