The Story of the Traditional Houses of La Palma

You might have heard about the casas rurales of La Palma - the lovely old rural houses dotted about the countryside of the island.

But these are not just any rural houses, no, these are the traditional Canarian houses steeped in the fascinating history of La Palma. In fact, unlike a new house built in the traditional style, the original rural houses are more than a hundred years old, often something more like 150 to 200 years old. What they all have in common is that they are built of local stone with walls nearly two feet thick and of tea wood (the heart of the La Palma pine tree) for the floorboards, ceiling, doors and window frames. The other identifying feature is the roof of four sides, the 'hip' design or otherwise known as 'cuatro aguas,' four waters.
The roofs of the older houses are tiled in Arabic clay tiles, the first tiles on La Palma. Before this, the roofs were of bare wood, again of the highly durable tea (pronounced 'tee-ah') wood. They say the tiles were fashioned on the thigh, with the two ends different in width as in a thigh. I'm not sure how true that is but it's a story I'm happy to keep going!

In later years, the flat French terracotta tiles were used and these have ridges/grooves along the side edges which allow the tiles to interlock with each other. To further add to their staying power on the roof they have an integral 'eye' on the underside of each tile which allows a piece of wire to pass through and then to be tied on to a beam of the roof. A real belt and braces job! These French tiles, unlike the Arabic tiles, are quite fascinating in themselves as each tile carries the name of where it was made - such as Etiennne, Marseillses - and they sometimes have a special motif such as a bee, turtle, Maltese cross, anchor, horse or lion.

Bee motif on French tile in La Palma

Apparently rarer ones are now collectors items. Actually, I can vouch for this fact as when we were trying to locate some old 'tejas Francesas' (French tiles) to restore one of our roofs and took to the knocking on doors approach wherever we saw a weed-covered pile of them in someone's garden, we were always refused and told they were about to be used/had a buyer/our son wants them/can't part with them. Definitely a collector's items then.

If the exterior of the roofs are not fascinating enough, then the interior ceiling really is a masterpiece. Great planks of tea wood are overlaid onto beams with a super-neat meeting at each of the four corners as they dove-tail perfectly together. I never know whether to be most amazed at the feat of dragging the wood down from the mountains, sawing it into planks or the mathematical genius it took to work out the measurements!
If you rent a rural house on La Palma, can you just imagine laying in bed and being able to gaze up a this lovely ceiling?

Some houses are single storey, usually with the rooms all in a line with each room having its own exterior door. This  might seem a curious idea but why waste space and building time with an interior passage when you can just go outside from one room and back into another!
On La Palma, you'll find quite a few houses for sale and in need of restoration or houses already restored and being rented as a holiday home for rural tourism.

Where a house is of two stories, particularly in an area where the land is steep, then the house is built into the land, literally leaning back into it and these traditional houses are called 'casas de arrimo' or 'leaning houses.' From the rear they look like a one storey house and it's only when you go around the side or front that you realise they are actually of two storeys. The downstairs was never part of the accommodation but rather a room for storage or used as a workshop and they don't have an interior staircase but instead use steps following the lie of the land at the side of the house.

So whilst a traditional house is single or two storey, both are simple and not of vast proportions - imagine that to build a house, first of all you would have to dig out enough flat land on which to build it, then go and gather your stones and wood for the construction - no wonder they weren't big! That said, a big room would normally be divided into two or even three rooms with a 'tabique' wall, a partition wall to divide them.
In the old house, the kitchen was never in the house but instead would be an entirely separate building. After all, food was cooked over firewood or pine cones and apart from any fire hazard, why contaminate the house with smoke and cooking smells.

But the thing that I love the most about the houses is the wood, especially the lovely floorboards. Look out for the saw marks where the planks were sawed by hand, one man at each end. 

And of course, the built in window seats which feature in some of the houses.
Luckily, you don't have to content yourself with photos of rural houses as many rural houses on La Palma are for rent. And you too can enjoy a little slice of history.
* You can read more about the history of Garafia in the book 'Garafía, Descúbrela a Través de sus Senderos' - Garafía, Discover it Through its Trails' which you can get in English and Spanish (and probably German too). It's IBSN no. 846063750-6 and I highly recommend it, especially as it has many fantastic photos.