History of the House
El Caracol, meaning 'The Snail', was built in the early 1960s by Aesthetics Professor Jose Maria Sanchez de Muniain (born 1909) with architect Curro Inza. 
The house is unique: it is made of thick stone walls in the shape of a snail's shell - there are no sharp corners and the rooms sweep around in a spiral from the central fireplace. Almost Gaudiesque in form, it has high ceilings with terracotta tiling.
The house was very much designed with Jose Maria’s love of the natural aesthetic in mind – his work the Aesthetics of Nature was published in 1949 - and the curves, shapes and materials used in the building fit beautifully into the surround ing landscape.
Don Jose Maria and Inza worked together to create this ‘semi-functional, semi-abstract sculpture’ of a house which is nestled in the stunning Lozoya Valley, in a privileged and uniquely positioned spot enveloped by a circular range of mountains: Navacerrada, Somosierra and El Puerto de la Morcuera.
They wanted to design a house where the primary focus was the fireplace, and the house was built around it, like houses in very warm climates with their central patios. It was this vision that led to the circular, snail-shell shape of the house (hence the name, ‘El Caracol’, which means The Snail). All materials used were as natural as possible – the house is built of stone, wood and terracotta – and the thick walls were designed to ensure the house was warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. The primary concern at the conception of the house, however, was that the building was not only to blend into the surroundings, but to reflect the surroundings.
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