Casa Son Cabaspre, Esporles

The road ends at your gate

Esporles is ten minutes down the hill — a working village with a Saturday market, a bakery and a school, not a resort. The road out of it climbs, turns twice and stops at the gate. From there it is eight thousand square metres of your own, with the Tramuntana closing the view on three sides.

Above you there is nothing but mountain.

Someone already did the hard part

This was a ruin. It was taken back to the stone and rebuilt — 350 square metres, five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a fireplace that draws, solar on the roof, a garage for two. It is move-in ready today. What is left is not repair work.

You could sleep here on Friday.

Three things turn a good house into one people argue over

A country kitchen. A wider opening from the living room onto a pergola — a long table in the shade, the pool a few steps beyond. Past the water, a yoga deck and a grove of olive, lemon and orange planted across the land. All three are drawn and costed, and all three are built before anyone moves in. We sell the finished house, not the one standing today.

Two of these pictures are drawings. The lemons are already on the trees.

Eight thousand square metres and no one overlooking it

Old olives, agave, lemons already in the ground, and room for the grove. The pool faces the mountains. Esporles is ten minutes down, Palma half an hour, and the coast at Banyalbufar closer than either.

Dinner runs late because there is nowhere to be.