I always imagined Gran Canaria to be little more than sun, sea and sand, a lure only for those creatures possessed by such things. But Min Hogg, WoI’s founding editor, came here in the mid-1980s to visit her friend Christophe Gollut, the great Swiss decorator, who had bought a house here a few years earlier (WoI May 2000). Before she’d left the island, Min had purchased a property too. What, I thought, could they possibly have seen in this holiday destination?
I arrived on a blustery day, and Christophe, with whom I too was in fact staying, had come to greet me. He was complaining about the rain-clouds. His village, Ingenio, is only ten minutes or so from the airport. One climbs uphill, past grisly examples of 1970s and 80s town planning, and then the eyesores recede, the streets narrow and twist and turn, and one is suddenly in a picturesque settlement dominated by the elegant Parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria church.
On the first day of three spent at his enchanting house, we went to Las Palmas, a sprawling city about half an hour’s drive away on the rough Atlantic. High-rise hotels dot the seafront, and in between one gets to glimpse the odd marvel – on one gracious square, for instance, stands the Teatro Pérez Galdós, an opera house opened in 1890 whose entrance hall features wondrous friezes of plump cherubs holding garlands of fruit. Walking through the old town, with its quaint cobbled streets, and grand dwellings painted in shades of orange, strawberry, yellow, sky blue, grass green and off-white, we arrived at Christopher Columbus’s lodgings, a house built around an open courtyard. Its rooms are filled with miniature ships, and a life-size section of the cabin in which he set off to explore the Americas. Earlier this year, we attended an exhibition here called Mother-of-Pearl Soul, with giant 18th-century paintings of battle scenes inlaid with iridescent nacre.
We stopped at the Santa Catalina for lunch. The hotel first opened its doors in 1890, although it was later rebuilt in an explosion of Neoclassical and ‘regionalist’ styles. Bold and fantastical murals by Jesús Arencibia, populated by muscled men, enliven the grand rooms and carry a trace of my beloved Josep Maria Sert.
We hied to the magisterial Castle of La Luz, originally built in 1478 by Juan Rejón and therefore considered the oldest fortress in the Canaries. Despite its small scale, the structure’s dramatic seaside location lends it an imposing air. Designated a historic monument, it has been transformed by the architects Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano into a dazzling contemporary museum space, with a permanent installation of Martín Chirino’s work. Filled with his whorls, it brings to mind the sculptor’s own words: ‘My primeval image is that of a spiralling wind: when, as a child I watched how the wind caused the sands on the beach to swirl.’ Beware! It is not for the faint-hearted. Having climbed to the top, up steps guarded by a wobbly steel banister, I realised I had to cross an exceptionally narrow walkway to reach the other side. Heart in mouth, I made it, and heaved a sigh of relief, only then to register that beyond lay a glass floor, revealing the fortress floor far below, and a very narrow exit. So it is a dazzling space, but also a terrifying one.
In the hills above, we discovered many intriguing 18th-century villages: Arucas, Agüimes and Teror among them, all with grand houses on steep gradients, and built around important churches. I couldn’t get enough of it, rain or not. Although, when it was time to leave, Christophe said: ‘I feel guilty because 20 minutes from my village, it’s been sunny these last three days.’ So we went and, sure enough, within 20 minutes the glorious sun shone forth. Sea and white sand stretched for miles, but so too did the tower blocks. On balance, I think I preferred the rain-clouds.
A version of this article appears in the June 2026 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers. Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, and be the first to receive exclusive stories like this one, direct to your inbox
