Casa Carbonell

This striking building, known as the Casa Carbonell, is one of the many landmarks along Alicante’s Explanada de España. It’s a private mansion built in the 1920s by Juan Vidal Ramos, the architect behind much of the region’s architecture. The palace was commissioned by Enrique Carbonell, a wealthy textile manufacturer, and its lavish design reflects the economic boom experienced by the local textile industry during the First World War. According to local legend, Enrique Carbonell Antolí, a textile entrepreneur from the town of Alcoy, was passing through Alicante in 1918, planning to settle here. His daughter was ill, and doctors had recommended the city’s seaside climate for her recovery. As the story goes, Carbonell’s clothes became dirty during the journey, and when he tried to check into the luxurious Hotel Palas to clean up, the manager turned him away because of his dishevelled appearance. In response to this humiliation, Carbonell apparently bought the land across from the hotel, on the site of the former city market, and ordered the construction of the grandest mansion in the city, in front of the hotel that turned him away. Whether or not the story is true, Casa Carbonell remains one of Alicante’s most iconic buildings, and a fine example of bourgeois architecture.