Quinta
Girassol
A rooftop that used to be a forgotten corner. Now it’s where the evenings happen.
Quinta Girassol sits just outside Albufeira, on the Algarve coast — a traditional villa with solid bones and a garden full of potential, but interiors and outdoor spaces stuck in a previous era. The brief was a full renovation that would bring the property up to the standard its location deserves, without erasing the character that made it worth keeping in the first place. Eight months later, every room had changed — and so had the rooftop the owners had never really used.
The same hands, start to finish.
We designed and built the timber pergola by hand — treated round posts and a reed shade covering, engineered for Atlantic storms and salt-laden coastal air. The same crew that raised it hung the pendant lights three weeks later, then poured the cobogó terracotta counter for the outdoor kitchen a few metres away. No subcontractor hand-offs, no lost context between phases — the reason the finish holds up under a flashlight, not just in a photo.
Applied by hand. Nothing else touches these walls.
The walls throughout Quinta Girassol are finished in Kalklitir, a natural lime paint mixed from raw minerals and pigments — shipped as a powder, mixed fresh on site, and applied 100% by brush. No sprayer, no roller: every wall carries the texture of the hand that painted it. We used a warm sand tone in the main suite and a soft sage grey in the guest bedrooms.
It’s VOC-free, breathable and EU Ecolabel certified — a healthier finish for a home, not just a better-looking one. Build It Now is an authorised Kalklitir applicator in Portugal.
Three views of the same rooftop.
Two things carried this project. First, material authenticity doesn’t fake well — Kalklitir, herringbone oak and hand-built timber have a presence synthetic alternatives simply don’t, and in the Algarve’s premium segment, people feel the difference even when they can’t name it. Second, the rooftop was the biggest single win: a bare terrace used three months a year became a living space used twelve.
Own or manage a villa in Albufeira or the wider Algarve? If you recognise the gap between where your property is and where it could be, we should talk. Every project starts with a confidential consultation to understand your goals and your timeline.
