ALTAMAR

One room deep, and all of it facing west

The house is a single long bar laid along the clifftop, one room deep, so every room in it faces the water. You arrive at the north end, into a hall that opens straight onto the horizon. Everything else — the bedrooms, the kitchen, the terrace — hangs off that one line.

The Great Room

Twenty-two metres long and open on the entire sea side, so it is less a room than a covered stretch of cliff. Limestone floor, exposed timber beams overhead, and a wall of glass that folds away completely. Seating at one end, a table for ten at the other, and nothing between them tall enough to interrupt the horizon.

The Kitchen

A four-metre island of dark stone under a lower timber soffit, which is what makes it feel like a room when nothing around it is. Walnut throughout, blackened steel, everything hidden except the stone. It sits at the north end of the great room, so whoever is cooking still gets the view.

The Bedrooms

Five of them, all off a single corridor that runs the length of the house. The corridor takes the land side and gives every bedroom the water. Concrete, linen, oak, and a window each. Deliberately plain — the house spends everything on the room you have already walked through.

The Pool

Twenty-one metres along the western edge, its far lip dissolving into the sea from every angle that matters. A bar built into the low wall behind it, four stools, and a deck of teak the salt has turned grey. This is where the house is actually used, and everyone who has ever visited has said so.

The house, in figures

Alone, but not far

Punta Ánima is the last headland before the coast turns north and the road runs out. The house is the only building on it. From the terrace you can see fourteen kilometres of coastline and not one other roof.

• Private cove96 steps · 3 min on foot
• Village of Sant Adrià9 min by car
• Marina & yacht berths20 min
• Girona–Costa Brava airport55 min
• Barcelona El Prat1 h 50
• Paris, by air1 h 45