This is the Casa Museo Axarquía, a journey full of fantasy and history

This is the Casa Museo Axarquía, a journey full of fantasy and history

JAVIER ALMELLONES Málaga Saturday, June 5, 2021, 18:56

If Gaudí has his 'Capricho' in the Cantabrian town of Comillas, Antonio Montañez also has his in El Valdés, a charming village in Moclinejo where more than a decade and a half ago he decided to build a very special home. Inspired and seduced by modernism, this neighbor decided to build a house that would pay an endearing tribute to both his town and the Axarquía region.

It took only a year to build what he called the Axarquía House Museum. "I spent 365 days working on it and 365 nights awake thinking about what I was going to do the next day," says its owner, now retired, but previously owner of the well-known Malaga company Cocinas Montañez.

Gaudian and modernist inspiration came to Antonio above all because of his passion for chromatic variety. "I have always liked having many colors in what I do," he clarifies. From that artistic influence and with the aim of paying homage to his land, he managed to create a building that, from the outside, does not go unnoticed. Its windows, its walls or its tower stand out in the highest part of the village of El Valdés. The Axarquía House Museum seems to have been taken from a magical tale, with elements and colors that are not accidental. Among them, there is even a map of the region itself. With pieces of tiles, as a 'collage', Antonio managed more than a decade and a half ago to surprise all the neighbors and visitors with a very personal bet.

But, if it impresses from the outside, inside it is astonishing. On the one hand, the Gaudian aesthetic and the nods to the Axarquía continue in its furniture or in their ornaments. Thus, they can be seen from a chameleon on a wooden railing to recreations of boxes of raisins or bottles of wine that blend in with the interior of the house.

In its more than two hundred square meters, this house has five bedrooms and three bathrooms, which are distributed between the ground, first and second floors. To this must be added a cellar in the basement and two other floors, with access to the viewpoint or terrace, which culminate the building. In total, there are five different levels in this house that appears to have been taken from an Antonio Montañez dream.

Main room. Below, Antonio Montañez next to the jukebox that he has in the cellar and the entrance to the house. / Ricardo Pastor

Each of the five rooms has its own theme. One pays tribute to the verdiales, another to the products of the Axarquía and another to its towns. All this with collectibles that Antonio Montañez has been collecting for more than forty years, such as packaging or product labels, postcards or verdiales hats.

But, in addition to all those ethnographic elements in each of the bedrooms, we must add the one that awaits in the rest of the rooms of the house. In this way, between the main hall, the cellar and the corridors themselves there are shelves where you can find hundreds of pieces from an antique dealer: gramophones, cameras (among which there is one of a private detective), typewriters or even a machine for making ice cream by hand are some of the relics that await inside the Casa Museo Axarquía.

Among the objects that are kept inside this house in El Valdés, there is a large pocket knife that, in its day, cost Antonio one hundred thousand of the old pesetas. This could even belong to a bandit in the region, such as the famous Bizco de El Borge, whose portrait is only a few centimeters away. In the cellar there is still a jukebox that once belonged to a bar and where you could choose a musical theme for a penny. They are just two striking examples of the extensive collection that Antonio has treasured for more than four decades.

Collection of old labels. Below, the winks to the Axarquía are numerous. And bottles and other containers with many decades of life .. / SUR and Ricardo Pastor

Another peculiarity of this house is the use of recycled materials, from the flooring itself to many wooden furniture. Thanks to this, there are very worked rooms, such as the kitchen.

Visits

The Axarquía House Museum was born in its day so that it could be visited. Until before the pandemic, you could visit the first Saturday of each month for free in the morning. Now the most convenient thing is to do it through the company Enoxperience, which makes thematic routes through this and other places of interest in Moclinejo in a guided tour (contact at marina@enoxperience.com).

Tower that culminates the house.

In addition to his own home, Antonio has left his mark on El Valdés in other spaces, such as the entrance to the town center, a fountain in the town or even the children's playground that is adjacent to the Axarquía House Museum. In all of them there are Gaudian-inspired elements that will surprise both young and old.

On the other hand, Antonio Montañez, despite being retired, continues to be a very active person. He demonstrates it day by day in his new project in Torremolinos. There, near Playamar, he hopes to finish by the end of 2022 a house that, due to its aesthetics, will recall the Axarquía House Museum, although in this case it will be a much more personal work, where he will make a wink to his own family and other issues related to his life. It will undoubtedly be another 'whim' by Antonio Montañez that will continue to surprise those who want to visit him.

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TopicsMálaga, Málaga (Province), Moclinejo, Tejeda, Andalusia, Torremolinos, Vélez-Málaga, Tourists