Seeking a more authentic life in Spain, Dave and Lisa Horsman chose to buy a cave home.
It was when seeking a more authentic experience of living in Spain that Dave and Lisa Horsman decided to buy a cave home.
They’d been living for four years in Mar de Cristal on the Mar Menor, after leaving the Lake District behind to make a fresh start in Spain. “We had got very used to living in Spain, loved the weather and definitely didn’t want to go back to the UK, and with Dave’s Spanish having progressed very well, we decided we’d outgrown the development surrounded by lots of other British people,” says Lisa, 57. “We liked the idea of rural Andalusia and fell in love with the idea of cave living when visiting a friend’s one.”
The couple – both ex-service - started shopping for a home, which nowadays typically cost around €85,000 to €110,000, depending on size, spec and orientation. Many can be found in the Granada province where there are 20,000 cave homes, especially around Lake Negratin, Baza and Galera, around 60-90 minutes from the coast. Some cave homes are only partial cave homes: although from the outside many look like a conventional buildings, they are in part cave with an extension, Dave and Lisa’s has a kitchen extension. Those with multiple parts make ideal rentals!
Dave and Lisa live in a three-bedroom cave home next door to one of a similar size they renovated to rent out to generate income. The properties share a beautifully kept terrace and a swimming pool (many have above-ground pools well integrated into the landscape).
“The real benefit of cave homes is that they don’t get too hot or too cold – they are wonderful at staying at a constant 18-22 degrees,” says Dave, 61, also a photographer. “It’s really pleasantly cool in the peak summer, and cosy in the winter. We don’t have central heating, just a couple of log burners.”
It is also wonderfully peaceful – the couple don’t hear a sound from their bedroom and guests remark how they ‘sleep like babies’ cocooned by the rock. Lisa has used colour to decorate their rental property which has all mod cons including WIFI, hot water and washing machine. “We wanted to keep the Andalusian feel, which includes having heavy curtains as internal doors – for ventilation purposes,” she says. Cave living means that ventilation is important – the Horsman rental cave is unusual that the bedrooms have skylights so the only room without a window is the bathroom. They have learnt that some walls can be painted, others left as natural stone to breathe.
Some caves can be damp, or the salt content in localised stone can mean regular flaking and repainting. “We only have one wall like that,” says Dave. Their guests are mostly Spanish but there are Belgian, British and a mix of other nationalities. They had a good summer and have not decided whether to close their rental for some of the winter, as some owners do. Their advertise through their website.
They are 10 minutes from Baza, a vibrant town with bars and restaurants, and only 500m from their local bar. Their property offers stunning mountain views and is a great base from which to explore lakes, thermal springs, as well as outdoor pursuits including walking, mountain biking, and rock climbing.
Caves, or cuevas, ‘boomed’ during the Moorish period when used to store grain and animals. Lisa points out remains of a feeding trough in their cave, along with the 5-ft bread oven (now re-purposed as a pantry).
Abandoned during the 1960s when the farming industry collapsed, caves became repopulated again in the 1990s. They are now the most popular type of holiday rental in the area. If you’ve ever tried one, you may be smitten. “Once you have lived in a cave, you never want to live in a house again,” says Lisa.
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