Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Portugal / Cascais / The Albatroz Hotel
The Albatroz Hotel
Cascais, Portugal · Independent · Accessible Luxury
The Duke of Loule put this house on the rocks above Praia da Conceicao in 1873, one of the first villas the Portuguese nobility built in Cascais so they could follow the royal family down for the summer. Cascais nicknamed it the Almond Box. It took its first paying guests in 1963 with eleven rooms, a dining room and a lawn where tea was served on spring afternoons. The lawn is a pool now, the tea survived, and the house has grown to about fifty rooms and suites across three buildings on the bay.
- 51 rooms
- Opened 1963
- Rooms from 215 sq ft (20 m²)
- Architect: Luis Pedro d'Avila
About The Albatroz Hotel
- Pedro de Loule, majordomo to Queen Maria Pia, commissioned the house in 1873 from the architect Luis Pedro d'Avila. Cascais called it the Almond Box and the name stuck.
- It opened to guests in 1963 as the Estalagem Albatroz with eleven rooms, and reopened in April 1983 after eighteen months of rebuilding and enlargement.
- Rooms are spread across three separate houses: the original palace, the White House next door reached by a first-floor bridge, and the Albatroz Palace facing the beach across the street.
- Entry-level rooms start at 215 sq ft (20 m²).
History
The main building of the Albatroz was raised in 1873 for Pedro Agostinho de Mendonca Rolim de Moura Barreto (1830-1909), Duke of Loule and majordomo to Queen Maria Pia, to a design by the architect Luis Pedro d'Avila. It was one of the first grand villas the Portuguese nobility built in Cascais, put up so that the court could follow the royal family during their September and October stays at the citadel. Its position on the rocks over Praia da Conceicao and its pale compact shape earned it the local nickname Caixa de Amendoas, the Almond Box.
The house passed through several families and stayed private until 1963, when it opened to tourism as the Estalagem Albatroz: eleven rooms, one dining room, a bar, and a lawn where guests took tea on spring afternoons. The Albatroz group bought it in 1982 and reopened it in April 1983 after eighteen months of remodelling and extension, the lawn by then replaced by a swimming pool. Further buildings were added over the following decades, and the hotel now runs about 45 rooms and 6 suites across the original palace, the neighbouring White House, and the Albatroz Palace opposite the beach.
The setting
The Albatroz stands on Rua Frederico Arouca directly above Praia da Conceicao, in the stretch of Cascais the Portuguese aristocracy colonised in the 1870s to be near the royal summer court at the citadel. That is why the bay is lined with nineteenth-century villas rather than apartment blocks. The fishing harbour, the marina and the citadel are a walk along the seafront in one direction; Estoril, its casino and the long Tamariz beach lie the other way, on the same coastal railway that brought Lisbon down to the sea. Boca do Inferno, the sea-carved chasm in the cliffs, is about twenty minutes on foot west of town.
Restaurants and bars
- Atelier Albatroz — Café · Coffee shop
Amenities
- Event planning support for meetings, facilities and event tips
- Private dinners in the Estar Room
Open The Albatroz Hotel in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
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