Photography courtesy of Quintana Partners.
The Spanish island of Menorca (Mallorca’s neighbor in the Balearic archipelago) is home to what may be the world’s first plant nursery to be converted into a vacation compound—and without major construction or tear downs.
The private setup is the work of Quintana Partners, a trio of designers—Benito Escat Diaz; his son, Benito Escat Velez; and his son’s partner, Pol Castells—who have artfully remodeled a number of historic houses on the island and are known for their poetic celebrations of the past.
Rustic gates and the original stucco wall mark the entrance.
“The garden center opened in the 1970s to provide plants—mostly palms and cacti—to the new neighborhood that was being built at the time in Fornells,” explains Pol.
The main structure, formerly home to the shop, offices, and a potting room, is now “a summer chilling house,” says Pol.
A wicker pergola provides shade and a deck adjoins a large covered patio with a concrete floor. The wooden front deck, which the designers built with wood recycled from an old barn, is the compound’s main gathering spot.
After removing “four tons of plastic and doing a lot of cleaning,” the designers set up a shaded space for dining, lounging, and napping.
What had been the main sales room is now a cozy kitchen with a potting table as an island.
Left-behind garden tools hang from a metal rod in the living room, which is separated from the kitchen by a wooden folding screen.
Agaves, prickly pears, and other succulents grow around quonset hut greenhouses.
The structures now shelter a collection of 1980s and ’90s trailers (bought in Barcelona) that serve as extra guest quarters, each with its own wooden deck.
Quintana Partners installed a swimming pool at the bottom of a field and edged one side with a cactus border.
The designers reorganized some of the plantings, but all were already there.
An old water tank is now a sandy-floored outdoor movie theater.