Otiima House

An Architectural Gem Anchored into a Rugged Hillside

A national park setting gets revolutionized with the addition of this raw, architecturally innovative home built harmoniously into the hillside and bedrock. The home breaks the standard boundaries between landscape and architecture, presenting a pure, elemental form entirely integrated into its wild, wooded setting. 

Startlingly bold and stunningly luxurious despite its rural setting and primitive focus, this widely celebrated home’s geometric living spaces are built atop a massive cement base, and the structure is elevated imaginatively on structural feet, or posts, giving it a light, floating character in contrast to its dense structural materials.

All about merging with its wild outdoorsy environment, this home offers remote luxury and is truly unique. It has been celebrated as one of the five most important homes in the world and featured by Netflix and the BBC, among other notable mentions.

An exceptional modern vacation rental in Portugal, within the confines of Peneda-Gerês National Park, this architectural gem is anchored into a rugged hillside. Made of concrete, wood and glass, the home showcases the beauty of raw construction elements, and manages to stand out and inspire awe, yet also entirely blend into its rich, natural surroundings. 

Massive, windowed walls are set create dramatic openings for natural light. Interior wood-clad wall and ceiling treatments add surprising warmth and coziness to the contemporary construction. And the home's vast, rectilinear volumes are stretched along the landscape at varying levels by terraces and stairways jutting from the forest floor.

Inside, the thoughtful design continues the architectural emphasis on modern luxury with its raw, almost primitive aesthetic. Furnishings are spare in each of the open concept rooms. Tall sliding doors and extra-large windows emphasize the artful blurring of the boundaries between indoors and out, and open to the spectacular landscape. Adding to the organic look and feel, an all-natural, river-fed swimming pool and a wild, intentionally untended wooded garden spread out around the home's many boardwalks and walkways.

The home’s master bed-and-bath unit occupies its own unique structure at one end of a large terrace and has a hot tub with a view across the verdant mountains. The principal structure holds the home’s common areas—ample living, dining, kitchen, and den spaces—and is flanked by a second terrace, this one appearing to float above ground level, overlooking the natural swimming hole below. Upstairs, two additional double bedrooms and baths, as well as a sauna and casual lounge, complete the lodgings.

AROUND

Located in the heavily wooded and gently mountainous Peneda-Geres National Park of Northern Portugal, the country’s sole national park, this modern vacation rental in Portugal occupies an area regarded for its wild beauty. The park offers hiking trails of varying technical levels and multiple waterfalls. 

Other water sports options, such as motorboat rentals, fishing, kayaking and swimming are easily accessible nearby and the historic small city of Braga is a quick 35- to 45-minute drive. Multiple picturesque small villages dot the hills surrounding the national park, and Porto, with its maze of medieval streets and historic river and seaports, is about an hour and a half’s drive away.

LOCATION

Vieira do Minho, Braga, Portugal. Nearest airport: Porto (1.5 hours).

BEST TIME TO VISIT: March to May