Fall 2024
History of the Village
The Portuguese noble class emerged and thrived during a period of crown rule and economic growth in the Middle Ages. A rise to noble status—formally granted by the king through letters of ennoblement—was dependent on family merit and proven loyalty to the crown, typically over many generations. Maintaining formal status required continued and significant service to crown and country, and rewarded nobles with titles, special privileges, and land grants.
Portuguese nobility showed great interest in the fertile soil of the Dão River region for its agricultural value, especially for the purposes of viticulture. Over time, the village of Santar attracted numerous noble families. For centuries, the area was quite prosperous.
The twentieth century, however, was not kind to Santar. The first three-quarters of the century included the devastations to Europe caused by World War I and World War II, as well as the dictatorial rule in Portugal of António de Oliveira Salazar (in power from 1932–1974). By the late 1900s, young people were moving away from Santar due to the lack of job opportunities, landowning families were struggling to maintain their agricultural holdings, and beautiful, centuries-old manor houses were falling into disrepair as the village decayed (Hass 2021).
A Creative Leap
An improbable redemption began in 2013 when Count Jose Luís Vasconcellos e Sousa contacted noted Spanish landscape architect Fernando Caruncho with the idea of adding a modernist addition to the 400-year-old formal gardens of his fifteenth-century estate in Santar.
When Caruncho saw the elaborate boxwood parterres and spring-fed fountains of the existing baroque gardens and walked the village with Vasconcellos e Sousa, he had a vision for doing something entirely different than what the count was proposing. Caruncho later told T Magazine (Hass 2021) that he asked the count, “Why not just leave your perfect garden as it is and instead bring all the others back to life, to join with it and return dignity to the whole town?”
Caruncho had recognized that Vasconcellos e Sousa’s ancestral home shared the village with four additional noble estates (one with direct royal ties), all in close proximity and all connected by charming lanes lined with village homes. He envisioned a series of interlocking gardens, knitting the village together both visually and socially into a vila jardim—a garden village. The plan held the possibility of reviving the village through tourism (the “Bilbao effect,” named for the Spanish city that hosts the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao), as well as creating a more progressive social structure by breaking down class barriers and encouraging more community interaction.
Though Vasconcellos e Sousa could recognize the brilliance of the idea, he had to first convince the other noble families of its validity and then garner the support of the village residents. Caruncho built an important tool for this persuasion: a large maquette of the landscape plan (Hass 2021). It was a tremendous help for people to be able to see, laid out before them, the elegance and workability of the plan. The maquette allowed them to envision how gates and bridges could connect village gardens and surrounding agricultural land in a unified 50-acre master plan.
An important breakthrough occurred when the royal Bragança family agreed to restore their crumbling manor house, Casa das Fidalgas, into a five-star hotel (Hass 2021). This represented a major buy-in to Caruncho’s idea, lending it credibility and focus. The villagers, having seen the maquette and hearing of the investments being made, became enthusiastic as well. Suddenly the village shifted from a place of despair and decline to a beehive of hope, promise, and entrepreneurship.
Our Visit to Santar
I was intrigued by the photos I had seen of Santar and the story of the village gardens. So, when my husband and I decided to take a bike tour of southern Portugal in March of 2022, we took the opportunity to see for ourselves what was happening there. The bike tour ended in Lisbon, and we were headed northeast to San Sebastian, Spain. It was easy to route ourselves through Santar. We had no idea what to expect from this little detour, but the village was in our path and our curiosity had hooked us.
Our stay started well with our arrival at Casa Luís de Camões Boutique & Literary House, the vacation rental we had secured online through owner Rui Henriques. It was a very pleasant apartment in the middle of the village. Rui gave us good information about what to see the following day and, importantly, where to have dinner that night. We headed out in a discouraging downpour to eat at Taberna da Adega. The meal was excellent and the restaurant and winetasting room were nicely decorated in a modern, casual style. It was our first inkling that something smart was happening in the region.
Thankfully, our one-and-only day to see the gardens dawned with clear skies. Greatly relieved at the break in the weather, we wandered down to the office of Santar Vila Jardim where Rui had made reservations for us to take a tour of the ambitious garden project. Casa da Lenha, a former woodshed, had been tastefully repurposed into a ticket office and gift shop by Caruncho’s architect son, Pedro—an example of the village hanging on to its valuable history while stepping forward into the future.
Casa dos Condes de Santar e Magalhães
Our guide sold us our tickets and then led our group of four across the main street to the House of the Counts of Santar e Magalhães. As we entered through the massive doors of the ground floor foyer, there were endearing signs of the family’s current use of the property. A wall rack full of hats had a selection of bicycles parked underneath. (Members of the family often come from Porto to stay the weekend.) We proceeded through an interesting collection of family history and memorabilia and viewed the chapel, but the highlight was the Caruncho maquette of the vila jardim.
When we finally stepped out from the darkened museum into the light of the Italian-influenced formal garden, it was breathtaking. I am not a fan of overly structured parterres with tight decorative patterns, but this garden had a refreshing mixture of gravitas and playfulness imbued with four centuries of maturation. The fantastical shapes of the boxwood obelisks and spheres (Buxus sempervirens) in conversation with the traditional rose-filled parterres, statuary, fountains, and allées of lemon trees (Citrus x limon) and camellias (Camellia japonica) resulted in a formality that didn’t take itself too seriously.
The property was developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when Portugal’s maritime empire was at the height of its power and trade. The architecture of the manor house, with its Orientalist towers, roofline, and window frames, reflects the global inspirations of its owner-builder. The garden successfully “curtsies” to the house.
The gardens of Casa dos Condes de Santar e Magalhães are spread over three acres and include a beautiful azure-tiled horse trough, with its panels depicting knights on horseback; a large spring-fed pond in a shady glen (all gardens in the village are irrigated by the underlying watershed); a commercial winery; and an expansive vineyard. The property is impressive and well cared for. A not-insignificant piece of “borrowed landscape” is the view of the neighboring Church of Mercy, visible from many vantage points in the garden.
Jardim da Casa da Magnólia
Our tour continued to the adjacent Magnolia House Garden, its name paying homage to the centuries-old Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) that graces the property. One can access the garden directly from the grounds of Casa dos Condes de Santar e Magalhães via an artfully-built staircase covered in honeysuckle (Lonicera caprifolium), part of the effort to physically link properties. Caruncho’s plan also called for each noble estate to have a vineyard (Vitis vinifera), creating visual cohesiveness as one traverses from one garden to another.
Igreja da Misericódia
We walked to the nearby Igreja da Misericódia (simply translated as ‘Church of Misery’) Church of Mercy, built in 1637 as a gift to the village of the noble Cunha family. The church property was nicely planted and had a small, gated garden. However, on the day we visited, the gate to the church garden was closed.
Linhares Santar e Magalhães
Entering a stone gate off the main street, we found ourselves in a small boxwood garden called Jardim dos Linhares Santar e Magalhães (Linhares SM). This garden was previously an orchard and vegetable garden for the Casa dos Condes de Santar e Magalhães, but it is now part of the Vila Jardim network of gardens to which all villagers have access. In this garden there are citrus trees (Citrus x deliciosa and Citrus sinensis) and the surprise of California poppies (Eschscholzia californica). The Linhares SM is connected to Linhares Ibérico Nogueira (Linhares IN) by a wisteria-covered granite pergola, designed by Caruncho to create another artistic link between garden spaces.
Linhares Ibérico Nogueira
We gathered that Casa dos Linhares IN was originally an agricultural property with a large field behind it. This large field, previously inaccessible and essentially unseen from the village streets, is now at the heart of the whole village. Jardim dos Linhares Ibérico Nogueira is now a continuous 8,500-square-metere (2.1 acres) garden planted with several tree varieties that include apple (Malus domestica), cherry (Prunus avium), olive (Olea europaea), pomegranate (Punica granatum), and kumquat (Citrus japonica). There are ten plots, five reserved for annual vegetables and the remaining five for perennials, such as artichoke (Cynara scolymus) and asparagus (Asparagus officinalis).
The landscape is both practical and pleasing to the eye. Local people are actively involved in the cultivation of these plants and promote organic practices. Where walls and entitlement once separated neighbor from neighbor and noble from commoner, the whole village is now able to come together and partake in this incredible asset. One of Caruncho’s key goals was to create a more vibrant, fair-minded society, and it would appear his cross pollination of ideas is working.
Casa das Fidalgas, now Valverde Santar Hotel & Spa
The last stop on our tour was the large property of Casa das Fidalgas, which the royal Brangança family crucially agreed to turn into a luxury hotel. The hotel and its ground were under construction when we visited in 2022, so we missed touring this exciting aspect of the project. We were, however, able to visit the hotel farm, Quinta das Fidalgas.
All 15 acres (six hectares) are surrounded by walls. While all the noble houses now have vineyards, the quinta’s are the most extensive. Caruncho and the count’s brother, Pedro de Vasconcellos e Souza, designed and planted them as part of the Vila Jardim project. The plan called for a dramatic circular vineyard, which can be appreciated from a pavilion on the gentle hillside.
We climbed to the delightful Caruncho-designed structure, fashioned out of trunks and twisted limbs of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). It has lovely views over the vines, the hotel, the village, and the Serra da Estrela mountains beyond. Around the base of the platform, Caruncho has planted osmanthus (Osmanthus fragrans). Eventually the fragrant-flowering trees will grow tall enough to make the pavilion appear to float above the vines.
Our Impressions
We ended our tour at Quinta das Fidalgas and used the remainder of our day to explore the village on our own. The village and its people were charming, and we found Caruncho’s brilliant ideas to be beautifully executed. His landscape plan has seamlessly improved village life without feeling artificially imposed.
Villages like this are why Americans come to Europe. We swoon over the human scale and craftsmanship of a bygone era: no garish signs, no ugly high-rise apartments, and no chain stores—just history and authenticity. We were relieved to see that the open countryside around the village was intact. The land is intrinsically valuable as farmland, and its natural beauty is a priceless asset for both residents and visitors alike. We hope the decision-makers of Santar will fight to preserve the charm of the village and the integrity of the surrounding landscape.
Resources and Travel Tips
Here are a few tips from our two nights in Santar:
- Be sure to mine the impressive website of Santar Vila Jardim. It has extensive information about the gardens and an interactive map of the village.
- Stay at the Valverde de Santar, which is now completed and looks to be quite lovely! For a reasonably priced alternative, try Rui Enrique’s bed-and-breakfast, Casa Luís de Camões Boutique & Literary House
- Dine at Taberna da Adega or have a gourmet meal at Paço dos Cunhas. The latter has a nice wine-tasting patio if all you need is a good glass of local wine. They feature red wines of touriga nacional, alfrocheiro preto, and alicante bouschet grapes and white wines of encruzado and malvasia fina.
- Look for the Chapel of Our Lady of Piedade, a lovely piece of architecture.
- Walk past the quaint Church of Saint Peter.
- Be sure to look for the stone path along the village perimeter near Casa das Fidalgas. There you will find the vestiges of the Roman road which once connected Vilar Seco and Santar.
Hass, Nancy. 2021. “In a Fading Portuguese Village, the Gardens Bloom Again.” T Magazine. September 24, 2021.
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Roses and Rosè: A Portugal Garden Tour October 2025
After our introduction to Porto, excursions will include Douro Valley, the charming town of Lousada, Braga, and Santar. Continuing to Lisbon, with visits to Setubal, Queluz, and Sintra. Focusing on cultural preservation, showcasing sustainable garden maintenance and design. >> JOIN TOUR
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