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"My father is the ‘chief gardener' of the house. He has even been invited to take care of other gardens, by the odd passer-by... but we didn't let him go!" says Patricia.
The Pergola garden is the ex-libris of the house, filling our senses with thousands of scents and colors. Manuel's task is to keep it fresh and alive. With the help of Sr. António, the real gardener of the house, Manuel strategically plans and studies the ground for each year.
Every flowerbed is rigorously planned and the plantations are meticulously registered to allow an effective rotation of soils, ensuring its fertility. And it is a matter of honor to Patricia and Manuel to have two shows of flowers in their garden every year.
But besides the pleasure the garden provides to those passing by, and how proud Manuel feels seeing it beautiful and well kept, this is also a way for him to maintain his mother's memory alive, given the fact that she had a passion for flowers.
Casa da Pergola (Pergola House) was built side by side with another mansion of the same type. But we might say that these two houses are non-identical twins because, even though they have the same genes, they have completely different characters.
The houses belong to Patricia's family since the first years of the 20th century, when her great-grandfather decided to buy them. His intention was to offer a house to each one of his two daughters. And that was the moment that marked the destiny of these two houses and the features that still characterize each one of them today.
Being a jovial and exuberant person, Patricia's grandmother - Manuel's mother - couldn't resist to the charm of her gift and immediately decided to live there. Her sister, more reserved, chose to transform her house into an occasional weekend retreat. While one of the houses was always full of life, receiving lots of elegant parties, the other remained closed most of the time.
During the twenties and thirties, some changes to the façade of the houses adapted them to the trends of that time. Roofs with simple and double eaves have been introduced, a characteristic of the Raul Lino style, the most important architect of that time, and frames with tiles from the Viúva Lamego and Sant'ana factories have been applied to doors and windows.
Even here, the character and personality of the two sisters have made the difference. While one has chosen the polychromic colors that include the Mediterranean blue and the bright red, the other chose the simple monochromic of blue over white.
In the middle of the eighties, after the two sisters' death, the two houses followed different destinies. While Manuel preserved his mother's property, keeping the house in the family, his aunt's heirs chose to sell theirs. At that period, the Casa da Pergola stayed empty for some time. As Manuel wanted to maintain the life it had while his mother was still alive, he decided to do something. At that time, Patricia was studying hotel management in Switzerland.
Given his daughter's vocation and the interest the house aroused among tourists, Manuel decided to integrate the movements that started the Manor House tourism in Portugal. As it had been completely restored in the inside during the sixties, the house was perfectly adapted and operational to this activity. In 1992, Patricia returned from Mexico, where she was already working in a hotel, and assumed the management of this project with his father.
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