The land that the hotel is on has been in your family for 200 years. What do you know about how it was used?
The estate was originally conceived as a fully self-sufficient farming community—almost 9,000 hectares supporting around 50 families who rarely needed to leave. It had its own agricultural production, its own social structure.
Do you have any childhood memories of spending time there? What did it feel like to you then?
I was born in 1975—the year after the Carnation Revolution [a military coup that overthrew the right-wing dictatorship]—and the property was nationalized almost immediately. So for the first decade of my life, Barrocal was more myth than memory. I’d hear stories from my family, about eight generations being connected to this land, but I couldn’t go there. When we eventually got it back, it was completely derelict. So my childhood relationship with it was really one of longing and imagination, which I think shaped how I eventually approached it.
When and why did you decide to convert the estate into a hotel?
In 2002, I came back to Portugal after studying and working abroad and went to spend time at Barrocal, trying to see it clearly rather than through the lens of family mythology. It became obvious quite quickly that restoring it for private use made no sense. This was never a family home—it was built to house dozens of families and support large-scale agricultural production. The only way to give it a future that was sustainable and honest was to open it. A 200-year-old place like this requires constant attention, constant investment. It needs a reason to exist. The hotel became that reason—not as a commercial exercise, but as the only credible way to pass something meaningful to the next generation.
You previously didn’t have any hospitality experience—how did you approach the construction and transition? What was important to you to preserve from the original?
I approached it by surrounding myself with people who knew more than I did. I worked with a historian, an archaeologist, a landscape architect, a geologist. I needed to understand the place before I could do anything to it. What I was most determined to preserve was the honesty of it. I didn’t want pastiche. I didn’t want a theme park dedicated to some romantic idea of rural Portugal. The architecture had to be in a genuine vernacular, using local materials and craftsmanship. Eduardo Souto de Moura understood that instinctively. The original bricks, the proportions, the relationship between the buildings and the landscape—all of that had to remain intact. What we added had to feel like it had always been there.
What’s the coolest thing people don’t know about the hotel?
There is a 7,000-year-old standing stone on the property, and 16 dolmens—megalithic tombs from somewhere between 6,000 and 4,000 BC. Oxford University published a sociological study in the 1970s focused almost entirely on the farm, which tells you something about its place in Portuguese rural history. The landscape holds an extraordinary amount of time. We sit at the end of a very long chain.
What do you obsess over that guests may never consciously notice?
The silence. Or more precisely, the way the silence changes throughout the day and across the seasons. The quality of the light in the late afternoon. The way the entrance to the estate works—there’s something that happens to people as they come through it, I obsess over not interrupting that. The goal is for everything to feel inevitable.
What is the most complicated part of creating a seamless guest experience?
Consistency. Not consistency in the sense of everything being identical but in feeling, the intention. Every person on the team has to understand what this place is trying to be, not just follow procedures.
How do you hire, what are you looking for in people, and is there anything that tells you right away someone won’t last?
I look for people who are curious and genuinely warm—actually interested in other people. The people who’ve been here for a long time also tend to have a strong relationship with the land.
What’s the most memorable behind-the-scenes save that your team has ever pulled off?
What I’ll say is that the most impressive saves are the ones guests never know happened. That’s the point. The real skill is in the invisible problem that gets solved before it becomes visible.
How many of your guests are returning visitors? Are there guests you look forward to seeing again every season?
A very significant proportion — more than you might expect for a property that still has strong new demand. Some families have been coming since we opened; children who came for the first time have now become teenagers. There’s something very gratifying about that. There are many guests I genuinely look forward to seeing. People who have become part of the rhythm of the place.
What’s the best part of your job? And the toughest?
The best part is watching the place give people something they are looking for—that slowing down, that reconnection. The toughest is carrying the responsibility of a 200-year history while also making decisions that will affect the next 200 years. The timeline is longer than a normal business, and that can be both clarifying and heavy.
What is one thing you wish guests could be better at, not just at your hotel, but in general?
I wish people could give themselves more time—for the place, for themselves.
We all want to know: who really gets the upgrades?
Repeat guests who treat staff with respect and genuine warmth. It’s noticed, always.
On your 10th anniversary, are you continuing to evolve any part(s) of the hotel or experience?
Always. The farm activities, the connection to the agricultural calendar—that’s something we want to deepen. The relationship between guests and the land is something we’re constantly refining. The experience should feel more rooted with every passing year.
Over the last decade have you observed any changes to this region of the Alentejo that increased attention and tourism has brought?
The attention has been a double-edged thing. The Alentejo has been discovered—which is wonderful in terms of what it means for the region economically, but with that comes pressure. The responsibility isn’t just to Barrocal, it’s to the broader landscape and community. Tourism that extracts from a place is not sustainable. Tourism that contributes to it—that protects and preserves—is a different thing entirely.
What do you do on a day off (if those exist)?
Walk the land. I spend most of my time in Lisbon so a day off at Barrocal is quite different from a day off in the city. I don’t need to do very much.
When you travel, you must experience other properties through the lens of what they get right (or wrong). What are 3 of your favorite hotels in the world and why?
Domaine de Murtoli (in Corsica) has a beautiful setting with its scattered shepherd houses and a low key atmosphere; it feels deeply rooted in land and culture. Soneva Fushi (in the Maldives) is our family’s favorite place to disconnect; they’ve been incredibly consistent over the years and the team is outstanding. Lastly, Hotel Santa Caterina in Amalfi is a timeless classic led by a hotelier that I admire and enjoy spending time with, Crescenzo Gargano.
Can you give us a little preview of your new project, Na Praia, in Comporta? Why did you decide to build something in a new location?
I first came across the land in 2011 and immediately became obsessed—340 hectares of preserved dune coastline between the Atlantic and the Sado estuary, two kilometers of white sand, three completely distinct ecosystems. What’s interesting is how different the two projects are in character. Barrocal is about land, about agriculture and history and the long relationship between humans and a particular piece of inland Portugal. Na Praia faces the ocean. It’s about the wild Atlantic, the never-ending dunes and the estuary. The impulse behind both is the same—stewardship, preservation—but the expression is entirely different.
Why did you choose Studio KO and what was it like shaping the vision together?
Studio KO have a quality that is rare in architects. Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty have a genuine reverence for place and for natural materials—the buildings at Na Praia are built from clay and timber that will weather with the Atlantic winds. The conversation was always easy with them, we learned from the land and partnered with local artisans and artists. It’s been a wonderful relationship that started over a decade ago.
How will the vibe and experience be different from São Lourenço do Barrocal—and what will it share with it?
Barrocal is interior, in every sense—inland, enclosed by the Alentejo landscape, rooted in agricultural time. Na Praia is open. The horizon is the Atlantic. The pace is governed by tides rather than seasons. What they share is an underlying principle: that a great hotel should feel like an inevitable part of its landscape, not an imposition on it. And the same commitment to local materials, local food, local culture—at Na Praia we’re working with nearby producers from the coast. The specificity of place is just as important as at Barrocal, just expressed differently.
You’ve dealt with setbacks to opening, including a fire. What have you learned from the experience?
The fire happened in March, in the final stage of construction. It damaged some rooms in the central section of a building. It was obviously a serious setback. What I will say is that the team’s response—the decision to start restoration work immediately—came from the same conviction that has guided this project from the beginning. A decade of work doesn’t change its nature because of a setback. Come next year, we’re actually going to have a better hotel for it.
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