Living rooms as unassumingly luxurious as Villa Pacheca’s are exceptional, and the best part is that this massive, book-filled, open hearth-warmed, double-storied, exposed stone former stable is only one of this centenary villa’s many standout spaces.

The owners of this traditional, Cantabrian mountain home have created a rustic chic cocoon that truly elevates cozy rural living. This villa for rent in Spain displays the couple’s love of nature, gastronomy, and quality rest, and showcases a harmonious blending of ancient architecture, contemporary design and one-of-a-kind furnishings. Throughout the ancient home, traditional hand-hewn timbers offset contemporary additions such as floating steel staircases, sleek lighting (the favored décor touch of the owner), whitewashed walls, and modern designer wallpapers, creating an exceptionally beautiful, rustic chic sanctuary deep in Spain’s northern mountains.

The sturdy masonry and wood villa appears to be a typical chalet-like structure of the Pasiegos Valley of northern Spain, where buildings like it have stood as sentinels since the 16th century. The home showcases its original ashlar stone, oak wood, and many of its traditional masonry walls and massive notched timbers and beams have been left exposed. Yet fully restored, the villa definitely offers a step up from rural tradition. Its former stable has been reconfigured as the home’s heart, a spacious and inviting open living and dining room with flagstone floors, a central fireplace, more than 500 books filling a two-story library unit, antique and contemporary furnishings including a widescreen TV set above a pair of clean-lined couches, and the exposed stone walls and imposing structural timbers of dark wood that have been left intact to create the room’s dramatic divisions.

Occupying the home’s original living quarters, the five double bedrooms sleep 10 across three levels. The bedrooms feature charming, shuttered windows with views onto the surrounding hills and forests, whitewashed stone walls and patterned William Morris wallpapers. A well-curated antique selection includes a handpainted, wrought-iron Milanese flower chandelier, and simple wooden side tables and chairs. The bedrooms share three bathrooms, including one en-suite bath and one bathroom with a tub. One bedroom is configured as a family room, with a mezzanine that has two twin beds ideal for children.

The villa’s kitchen is a fully-equipped country style food prep space, albeit whitewashed from top to bottom for modernity. It offers a compact countertop bar for two, with stools by Tristán Domeq, and a 19th-century pork table from France set under a modern white chandelier for food prep and in-kitchen dining. A windowed door lets light into the space and leads outdoors to the pastoral garden with its simple lawn dining and reclining terraces. Meals come together simply on the built-in outdoor barbecue in the shade of 200-year-old oaks, and outdoor seating offers views onto the peaceful Toranzo Valley and the neighboring fields of russet-colored cows.

AROUND

Set in the rural Pasiegos Valley region of Cantabria, this villa for rent in Spain sits in a hilly, forested zone formed by the Pas River. Pastoral, peaceful and relatively remote—the chalet is a place where time seems to slow down. The nearest village, Acereda, is home to only about 15 residents, and offers a designated free parking area that serves as a park and walk location for the villa. 

A mobile baker delivers bread twice each morning, and the nearby villages of Alceda and Ontaneda offer butchers, grocers, a fishmonger, laundry and health services, and restaurants, bars, and banks less than a 10-minute drive away. 

The Via Verde, a 34km, former railway-turned-recreation path, is only 500m from the home and was created to be a no-vehicle route expressly for cyclists, walkers and joggers. The home is located near the Miera Valley, one of the Pasiegos region’s most dramatic, where limestone and karst outcroppings reveal land once covered by ancient glaciers, and serene mountain lakes fill tight mountain valleys. In both the Miera and Pas Valleys, small cobbled villages offer notable medieval to Baroque architecture and houses are draped in flowering window boxes. The Cuevas del Castillo and neighboring caverns nearby also contain some of the best preserved examples of Paleolithic art. Several beaches are located a quick trip away, including Playa de Los Locos, which is about 30km away. Santander is the nearest small city, and the capital city of Madrid is located about 3 ½ hours drive from the home.

LOCATION

Santuride de Toranzo, Cantabria, Spain. Nearest airport: Santander (30 mins by car). There is a weekly ferry to Santander from Plymouth in the UK, which makes travel to the house for British residents very easy.

BEST TIME TO VISIT: late May through December