Less than a 1-hour drive from Lisbon and 25 minutes from Comporta beach, a magical house set on top of the medieval Castle of Alcacer, with breath-taking views from an infinity pool hovering the Sado river and its endless rice fields.
Comporta is an exclusive, laid-back coastal region in Alentejo, often called the “Hamptons of Europe“. with pristine wild beaches, pine forests, and vast rice paddies. The area is known for its “barefoot luxury,” sustainable design, and serene, unspoiled nature.
Key features of the Comporta region include miles of white-sand beaches (Praia de Comporta, Carvalhal) backed by dunes and protected nature reserves. A tranquil escape focused on relaxation, with eco-chic, low-density development and whitewashed villages.
Popular activities include horseback riding on the beach, cycling through rice fields, and visiting the traditional stilt fishing village of Carrasqueira.
Alcacer do Sal is a small medieval town, 80 km south of Lisbon and 25 km from Comporta beach, located at the gateway to the Alentejo. It was a trading post for the Phoenicians, and later, in the 1st Century BC, it became a powerful hub of the Roman empire, named Salacia Urbs Imperatoria, or “City of Salt.”
Crowned by an impressive castle whose foundations were laid by the Arabs in the 8th Century, the winding streets and alleys of this whitewashed town, cascade down to the vibrant Sado riverside promenade, bursting with small local shops, cafés and restaurants, making it one of the most charming and picturesque communities of the Alentejo coast.
Each house has a story to tell. This one tells the tale of what is probably one of the most enchanted sites in the whole Alcacer-Comporta-Melides region. It sits on the ruins of the thermal baths, adjacent to what was once a Roman basilica, later a mosque, and since 1217, the Romanesque Templars church of Santa Maria do Castelo, or Igreja Matriz, as it is commonly known.
The owners, an architect and his son, now a young writer, stumbled upon the place on a sunny morning walk in 2005 in conversation with a local farmer that kept it as a vegetable garden amidst an idyllic olive grove of century-old trees.
Thereafter started a long curatorial process to create a contemporary house that would sit so gently on the site that one would feel as it always belonged there, a house that would embody what the Romans called the genius loci, the “spirit of the place.”
The motto of CASA DA MATRIZ, Memento Omnia (remember everything), chosen by the son, is reflected on the symbol of a ‘leaf,’ from the German poet Goethe’s own quote, Alles ist Blatt (all is leaf), who believed it carried the entire memory of the tree in its very fibres. The same hold true for CASA DA MATRIZ, always creating enduring memories of joy and friendship for its guests.
