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Tall Columns Pace a Stately Minimalist Mansion in Portugal

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The double-height columns of the mansions of yesteryear are given a very elegant and contemporary facelift in this stunner from de Blacam and Meagher Architects.

The San Lorenzo North House takes classical proportioning to the nth degree, in creating a box within a box that has been hollowed out leaving a rhythmic series of columns.

Stone slabs offer a refined contrast to the surrounding white stucco and slabs of white couches, offset by the most subtle natural hemp cushions.

The columns draw the dreaming eye up to the sky and its wonderful unobstructed immensity.

Gracious living at its finest is represented in the long wooden table echoing the shape of the cool blue pool.

Alongside the pool on the other side is an equally long wooden table for indoor eating.

This kitchen is the ultimate in the spacious workspace, being entirely a bench along one very long wall.

The entrance is into the heart of an agglomeration of well proportioned masses, arranged like some giant child’s blocks.

From the side, the house can be seen to climb from the entrance up the hill on the fairway in a series of cubic volumes.

The climb culminates in the stately portico at the top of that hill, off the living room.

Less dramatic are some of the interior spaces, which seem awkwardly shaped and relatively frumpy.

The living room seems surprisingly stuffy, weighed down by windows that don’t celebrate the huge scale of the room.

It’s a house that is situated overlooking a fairway of the San Lorenzo golf course.

Perhaps there are limits to minimalism for golfers.

But the exterior views are truly iconic in their simplicity and power.