What is a royal estate and what isn't
Why is this quality highlighted in so many real estate advertisements, often without being true? We explain it to you!
I must say that at first I had an intuition that it would be difficult to find documentation on what is a royal estate and what is not, and so it has been. It seems that the history of architecture in Barcelona ends in Modernisme, with the exception of some rationalist buildings designed by famous architects... In my research, I found a curious page of the Generalitat de Catalunya which offers a help manual to interpret the advertisements of flats. It says that a finca regia is any building more than 40 years old.
Really? 40 years is all it takes for you to get such a prestigious adjective? Isn't it a way of masking a building as old as hell, as Elena Sanz used to say (@elena_sanz) in an excellent article for El Confidencial dedicated to the picaresque applied in the advertisements for flats? In that case, it would have nothing to do with the definition of regal (sumptuous, great, magnificent) according to the Royal Spanish Academy of Language...
"Finca regia" is not a technical concept but an invention of the real estate industry.
We must start from one thing: "Finca regia" is not a technical concept but an invention of the real estate industry. to refer to those stately buildings, often with names and surnames, and a lot of pompous details, staircases and red carpets. As I understand it, by finca regia we should consider residential buildings over 60 years old, between four and eight storeys, most of them with large wooden or wrought iron and glass porticoes, and porches decorated with friezes, coffered ceilings and sometimes a fresco on the walls.
The icing on the cake in these porches is usually the lift, another characteristic feature of these buildings. In many estates they have been replaced by newer, less charming machinery, but those that still have the originals are beautiful hardwood boxes protected by a rhomboid iron mesh, sometimes decorated with wrought iron details and carved glass.
Inside there is always a mirror without quicksilver, the typical little resin buttons next to bronze signs indicating the floor, and often a small wooden corner seat to rest on during the journey, as they are not very fast....
Most of the houses are very large and have two façades, the main one with balconies overlooking the street and the rear one overlooking the gallery. Today, many of these houses have been divided in two to better adapt them to the needs of today's families. Thus, these buildings are home to old people who were born there and are never moved from there, large families, and a lot of offices and offices, all often watched over by a porter who lives in the small flat that occupies the stairwell. All these neighbours live spread over the 4 and 8 floors that these royal estates usually have, the main floor being the most important of the building, as it is the largest and has the highest ceilings.
What are the dwellings in a royal estate like? They usually have coffered ceilings, hydraulic mosaic floors, solid wood doors, large balconies on the main façade (day area), and a gallery at the back of the house (night area) with very spacious, huge rooms, designed for giant furniture.
In Barcelona there are many regal estates in the Eixample district. Good examples are the Malagrida Housethe Josep Padró Housethe Thomas House or the Francesc Tarragó HouseThe names and surnames of those who were the driving forces behind it. These and many other royal estates are duly catalogued and described in detail on this web page dedicated to the Barcelona Modernista and Singular.
With all this information you will no longer be taken for a ride, and when you read finca regia in a real estate advertisement you will know what to expect and what you can demand.
