LEVANTE LIFESTYLE

CAVE HOUSES - TROGLODYTE-STYLE LIVING

By Nathalie Jones

Ask the average new arrival to this part of the world whether they’d fancy living in a cave, and the answer would probably be a very definite “No”, followed by a whispered, “are you a couple of Barney Rubbles short of the Flintstones or what!” Yet cave houses are fairly common in some parts of Almería, and just over the Granada border in Baza, having a home literally sculptured out of Mother Earth is as typical as evening tapas and fiestas.

I must admit that until I looked in depth at the concept of a cave as somewhere to live, the idea of setting up home in a structure hewn out of rock was a long way to the opposite side of appealing. To me caves meant cold, dark, definitely damp and very probably dismal. I couldn’t understand why anyone would hole up in a gloomy cave like a sort of ex-pat Bilbo Baggins when they could be happily installed in a light, bright and cheery regular property.

It was only after talking to cave house dwellers and getting an insider’s view of a real cave home in Cuevas del Almanzora, that I recognised the enormous appeal of troglodyte-style living. Cave houses are cool, cosy, comfortable and delightfully quirky!

NOTHING NEW
Using caves as shelters is a notion man got the hang of fairly early on in the historical game. In places like Cuevas del Almanzora and Baza, exploiting what Mother Nature had already provided and tunnelling out man-made homes on slopes, the edge of gorges or in small hills has, the historians say, been going on for as long as 100,000 years.

These areas have the ideal type of terrain for creating a home with a hand-held pick: soft materials which are easy to excavate, but which are also sufficiently compact to guarantee solidity, and which crucially are impermeable so as to avoid water leakages and damp.

Even as recently as the 20th century, in times of widespread hardship and poverty a cave dwelling was for the more humble sections of society an obvious and easy cheap housing option, which could be adapted to traditional ways of life and with plenty of space for food stores and animal shelters.

CONTEMPORARY CAVE HOUSES
Many cave houses today boast all the practical conveniences and amenities of a regular property, from electricity and plumbing to satellite TV and ADSL connections.

Most often cave houses are renovations of existing cave dwellings. There are total new-build cave homes, designed and constructed by specially trained architects and builders, while another option is adding on conventional rooms to the front.

The Cuevas del Almanzora cave house owned by builder and cave house enthusiast Stephen falls into the latter category. The original cave rooms are around 200-years old, but the non-cave part, or ‘wraparound’, was added some time later.

My behind-the-keyhole tour revealed a thoroughly and tastefully modernised property, which is, surprisingly more spacious on the inside than it appears from outside.

Three genuine caves have been converted into stylish, comfortable bedrooms, one with the ceiling surface texture left natural and uneven as a most effective feature. A further cave is a state-of-the-art guest cave-bathroom with pine-covered walls and ceiling, creating a distinctly Nordic feel.

The cave rooms are accessed from the more recent additions: a main sitting room, dining room, office-cum-den and kitchen. There is also a very attractive internal courtyard and a large roof terrace, from where there are impressive panoramic views of the surrounding orange groves and mountain backdrop.

Stephen told me the “original carcass of the house” is virtually the same as when it was first constructed. Even so, it’s hard to imagine how the house would have looked when it served as a shelter for animals as well as people, the time when one of the caves had a different owner to the rest of the property; it actually stated on the “escritura”, or deeds, that he had the right to tie up his donkey at one of the tethering rings which are still fixed to the front of the house and access his cave through the front door!

INDIVIDUAL CHARM
One of the most appealing factors about a cave home is that each one is unique. The design and potential to enlarge the property is to a great extent determined by the topographical characteristics of the location, the orientation to the sun and the cave neighbours.

Inside you are constantly reminded these are homes which are sculptured out of rock. Rooms are irregular and interesting, characterised by curves, alcoves and niches. Ceilings are domed or arched, walls are rounded, and floors may be on various different levels.

PLUS POINTS
Speak to anyone who lives in a cave house and the first thing they’ll boast about is the constant year-round temperature of around 20ºC inside their home. Outside it could be a sizzling 40ºC or closer to zero, but the interior of a cave house is always just pleasantly comfortable, offering a cool, fresh haven in mid-summer and welcome warmth in the depths of winter.

The walls of Stephen’s house are more than a foot wide, and since there are not many windows, the heat and the cold are kept out. There is an air-conditioning unit in the main sitting room, which is one of the rooms which gets the most natural light, but it’s never needed he told me. And in the colder months, the log fire in the sitting room literally heats the whole house, and in no time.

Claustrophobic folk may baulk at the very idea of going into a cave house, much less sleeping in one. But the atmosphere is more safe and cosy than stifling, and it’s a common story that people spending the night in a cave house for the first time are amazed at how incredibly well they sleep, which is due to the absolute darkness and total silence.

CONSTRUCTION AND CARE
It’s a rather blindingly obvious point to make, but from a construction, renovation and maintenance point of view, cave houses are different from regular properties in various ways. It is certainly advisable for a major cave house makeover to take on builders with relevant experience and knowledge, or if you’re working on a cave house yourself, to arm yourself with the appropriate skills and materials.

When Stephen and his wife bought his cave house two years ago, the previous owners had spent two years working on it and bringing it into the 21st century; before that the house had been owned by the same man for 90 years, and had had very little in the way of mod cons and a corrugated iron roof.

Hats off to the British couple who recognised the property’s potential and did such a fine makeover job. Even so, Stephen has since made further modifications and added a number of features, and it remains a work in progress as they gradually adapt it to their own particular tastes and requirements.

“We could have lived in the house as it was, but we wanted to put our own stamp on it”, Stephen commented, explaining he was currently working on the roof and re-rendering the front of the house, while the main big outstanding jobs future are building a new staircase from the courtyard to the roof terrace and a new kitchen.

Stephen is doing pretty much of all the works on his house himself, but then he is a professional builder and decorator, with many years experience behind him, who also thoroughly enjoys his trade. But is it realistic to take on a 200-year old cave house, or indeed any kind of older property in the Levante area, with plans to do a DIY renovation job without that kind of background, I asked Stephen.

“I wouldn’t recommend it. If you’re planning to do up a property like this yourself you need to be of a builder’s standard. You need to know the ins and outs of structural matters as a basic, and you need to know about the right materials to use and how to use them. Alternatively, and if you can afford it, you get in an architect and get it surveyed properly, and then find a builder who has worked on a cave house before, or at least on old farmhouses, because much of what applies to “cortijos” applies to cave houses.

“It also comes down to whether you buy the property as a project or as somewhere to move into. But if I hadn’t had the knowledge I have and I didn’t enjoy working on the house, I think I would probably have looked for something similar to this, but which had been finished by someone else, and which didn’t need any work.”

What about the specific differences between cave houses and conventional properties?

“You definitely need to treat a cave house a bit differently from an ordinary property”, Stephen told me.
“I have been finding out things specific to cave houses which I couldn’t have known before. It’s a real head-scratcher, and I’m learning more and more as I go along.
“For instance, once a fresh cave has been dug out it should be left to dry for at least two years if you can before you start working on it and rendering it. Otherwise the paint will keep peeling and bubbling. You also need to use special breathable paints inside a cave house.
“They take the sandstone from the hillside, crush it, then bake it and then mix it with paint pigment, so it’s the same material as the cave and it breathes, and then it doesn’t flake off.”
Whether you do up a cave house yourself or pay someone else to do it, there is still ordinary maintenance to consider.
“Living in an old cave house, or any kind of old property, there is a going to be a certain amount of TLC”, Stephen pointed out.
“In a cave house you’re continuously going to get some kind of paint flake. You shouldn’t be alarmed by it; it’s because the sediment between the hard rock sediment is still breathing. But if the property has been built or renovated correctly, then there’s no real need to decorate it any more often that a normal house.
“As with any house, you need to keep it ventilated, because it needs to breathe. It’s common sense, but it is more relevant to a cave house because the rooms have to have a bit of air flow.
“You do get a bit of damp coming through, but what house here doesn’t. But in a properly constructed, ventilated and cared for cave house it will not be a real problem.
“Also, a cave house doesn’t get any more dusty or dirty than a conventional property, and of course there are less windows to clean!”

CAVE HOUSE TIPS
Going back to the possible sensation of claustrophobia in a cave house, I hadn’t actually noticed until it was pointed out to me that, for obvious reasons, windows are not a big feature of this type of home. The immediate impression one has of Stephen’s house is how bright, cosy and homely it is. The trick is in the lighting.

Forget ceiling lights pointing down to the floor. Go for spot lights mounted on walls to reflect light back into the room and ‘fairy lights’ draped around alcoves and niches to create glowing focuses of light. Another tip is to keep the walls and ceilings of cave rooms the traditional white to reflect the maximum amount of light.

There is also a lack of doors in a cave house, again for logical reasons, which Stephen explained.
“You don’t put doors in caves due to air circulation. If you go into a cave house which has doors, that’s when you get that feeling of dark and damp. It means you’re closing it in and only getting stale air because there are no windows or vents.”

That’s where privacy curtains come in, because they still allow the air flow. They can also be a beautiful, very atmosphere-creating decorative touch.

It struck me as Stephen showed me around that perhaps more than with other types of property, to get the best out of a cave house it definitely helps to have a certain amount of imagination and interest in home interiors, and an eye for what works and what doesn’t. Fortunately Stephen and his wife clearly do.

CAVE HOUSE CONCLUSIONS
Cave houses were a revelation to me. Above all else, I came away with the impression of ‘real’ homes, with their very own special character and appeal.

Certainly Stephen and family have no regrets about setting up home in a cave house, despite the inevitable Bedrock jokes from friends and family back in the UK, and even though when they originally moved to Spain they were looking for a cortijo to do up. Never in their wildest dreams had they imagined acquiring a cave property, at least not until they spent a weekend in Baza and visited a cave hotel.

“Our whole perception of cave houses changed”, Stephen told me.
“Our preconceived ideas were like most people’s, that caves were basically smelly, damp hovels. But we immediately fell in love with the cave hotel.
“It’s like a scene for a hobbit house in Lord of the Rings. Everything’s round, and everything’s hewn out of the rock, not just the rooms, but also the beds, the seats and the tables. We were fascinated. So when the opportunity came up to look at a cave house in Cuevas we jumped at the chance. And as soon as we walked in here it was love at first sight.
“Given a choice now between a cave house or a new villa, it would be a cave house every time!”