By RAY KELLY
The Madrid villa that Orson Welles once called home and where he shot portions of The Immortal Story is up for sale.
Built in 1934 on more than an acre of land, the villa is located in Colonia Camarines, one of the most exclusive residential areas in Aravaca.
“This wonderful colonial style house… draws attention by its warmth and good taste. In its interior, we find several living rooms, office, bedrooms, dining room, a charming porch where you can enjoy wonderful views of the garden. A guest pavilion, paddle court, swimming pool and parking for several vehicles complete the construction. A real luxury at 10 minutes from Madrid,” according to Engel & Volkers, the real estate agency handling the sale.
The home boasts 15 rooms, 15 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and eight parking spaces. Portions of the villa still resemble the way the house appeared when Welles filmed The Immortal Story there 58 years ago. Nearly three dozen recent photographs of the villa and its beautiful grounds can be seen at engelvoelkers.com/es/es/exposes/1f37696c-daea-5e27-bae7-c45ff24afd0d
Engel & Volkers is not publicizing the selling price of the property. However, houses one-third its size in the Colonia Camarines neighborhood have fetched $2.5 million in recent years. Welles purchased the villa in the 1950s.
He filmed The Immortal Story at his home between September and November 1966. It was an adaptation of a Karen Blixen short story. Blixen’s story centers on a wealthy, aging merchant, Mr. Clay, who tries to make a fable told to him become reality. The made-for-French television film was financed by l’Office de Radio-Télévision Française and co-starred Jeanne Moreau, Norman Eshley and Roger Coggio.
Welles lived in Aravaca with his third wife, Italian countess Paola Mori, and their daughter, Beatrice. Upon returning to America to shoot The Other Side of the Wind, Welles rented the home to his A Man for All Seasons co-star Robert Shaw, who accidentally started a fire that damaged a wing of the villa in March 1970.
EFE News Agency reported at the time said that “more than a thousand books, most of them dedicated by their authors, were reduced to ashes.”
In an interview with Wellesnet a decade ago, Beatrice Welles said a subsequent group of renters trashed the house. “They ripped wallpaper off the walls. They tore basins in a bathroom off the wall and there was water damage. We had a lot of stuff in storage in the basement… In the basement were all the things we cared about, including these two trunks and his Movieolas. The trunks went back to Italy.”
(Editor’s note: Special thanks to Pablo Manzano of Aravaca for his considerable assistance.)
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