Casa Fortunato, a Pombaline-style home built around the year 1910, has had many lives: the former family home of a Lisbon doctor, a Japanese club in World War II, and at one point it housed a restaurant owned by a Portuguese actress. Today it has been transformed through the lens of Filipa and her husband Antonio (an architect who lastly had an office in the building), with an astounding level of detail – and fun.
The couple did a feng shui study before they renovated, matching the colors of the home’s nine rooms to the position of the sun each day. Pass through exposed stone doorways and into these little worlds to be enveloped by bold, graphic Jupiter 10 wall-coverings, or the rich pigment of Farrow & Ball. In Room 9, you’ll find a kindergarten drawing by the couple’s son, mixed with a Moroccan rug and Eames chair. Elsewhere, furniture from the couple’s parents and grandparents mix joyfully with pieces by Minotti, Saarinen and Breuer. Lamps are a whole story unto themselves, with pieces by Foscarini, Artemide and Flos.
“You come as a guest, stay as a friend and leave as a family member,” says Filipa, meaning that the family’s personal touch extends beyond the décor. They are happy to arrange for a macrobiotic meal to be prepared for you, or to meet you for a glass of wine downstairs, where they’ll let you in on all their secret Lisbon spots.
Read more about this property in our Journal here.