Restoration:
respect for the history and the environment.
The restoration of the house has been carried out preserving the feudal state.
The original structure has been particularly respected, preserving
the external topology, as well as the original arches in the wine cellar and
also incorporating the traditional floor of the ancient villas, such as those
that embellish the library-lounge, restored by the combination of “hydraulic
jewels techniques” alongside with other modern techniques, but, at the
same time, endowing them with the commodities and services that assure the
welfare of its visitors.
The cortijo is also in balance with the environment, and
it is this harmonic integration that emphasizes both the huge stone house
and its landscape surrounding. This balance result in its traditional
and ecologic vegetable garden as well as the use of renew
energies.
The Cortijo de La Argumosa (the Argumosa villa) represents a great opportunity
to live the atmosphere of Sierra Nevada in the very heart of the Natural
Park. The first data about its existence go back to a print dated
from the seventeenth century, in which we can observe a group of villas at
the place that would later become the Cortijo de San Antonio (S. Antonio’s
villa). The group of villas was housing thirty families at the time, and was
later given to the marquis of Argumosa by the Catholic Monarchs, who built
the old cortijo alongside with the Ermita de San José (S. Jose’s
Hermitage), a pilgrimage place for people from the valley, as well as the
old stone cross known as la cruz de la trinchera (the trench cross), which
borders on the village of Güejar Sierra. The group of villas had also
their own bread mill and vineyards; with which they elaborate their own wine.
The property was used for the growing of cherries until it was given up in
the sixties. It was only then when the last owners built the impressive stone
house in front of the old group of villas.
