Casa de las Siete Chimeneas: the dark legend of Madrid

Although a visit to the “Casa de las Siete Chimeneas”, or House of the Seven Chimneys, can be tricky to organize, its most notable feature can be seen directly from the street.
Passing by, you can easily recognize it by it’s red brick façade, and of course by it’s seven chimneys.
The building, which stands right in the heart of central Madrid, owes its name to the chimneys that represent the seven deadly sins, and it used to be a country home on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by orchards and gardens when it was originally conceived back in the 16th century.
Historically, it was designed by the architect Antonio Silero and finished in 1577. In 1583 it was acquired by a Genovese merchant, Baltasar Cattaneo, and was popularly known as the Casas de Cataño. A few years later, Baltasar Cattaneo himself commissioned the architect Andrea de Lurano to extend the building, and it was at this point that the famous seven chimneys were added.
Ghosts are said to walk its roof on moonlit nights, which might be explained by a variety of stories.

Its most famous tale is of a lover of King Felipe II who became a nuisance to him when he married his fourth wife. He locked her in the House of the Seven Chimneys, but she escaped, and threatened to marry an old man to make the King jealous.
When the King responded with enthusiasm to his invitation to the wedding, and even offered to be best man, the woman became so distraught that she allegedly stabbed herself in the heart after the wedding in the cellar of the house. Her ghost is said to be seen on the roof on bright moonlit nights, looking towards the Royal Palace.

According to another legend, however, it was built by King Carlos V to serve as a home for one of his loyal huntsmen, but many believe that it was actually for the huntsman’s beautiful daughter, Elena, who may have been the secret lover of the king’s son, Felipe II.
However, in the end, Elena never married the future king of Spain and her husband, Captain Zapata, died at war, in the famous Battle of San Quentin, a decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1551–1559 between the Kingdom of France and the Spanish Empire.
It seems that, when she received the terrible news from the battlefield, she locked herself in her room, refused to eat, and eventually died of grief.
Her ghost, if the rumors are to be believed, still haunts these halls.
Rumours circulated that the king himself had commanded her death in order to conceal the birth of an alleged child who could have endangered the succession of the throne but, finally, Elena’s own father was accused of having committed the terrible crime, which led to another painful death.
The gentleman, either consumed by guilt or tormented by the public scandal, hanged himself shortly afterwards from a beam of the same seven-chimneyed house where his daughter had met her fate.
These events prompted Philip II to initiate an investigation to clarify what had really happened to the beautiful Elena, but to his bewilderment her body was nowhere to be found.
Years passed by and the citizens almost came forget the sad events of that unfortunate house, until a ghostly apparition jolted everyone’s memory, on the roof of the house, covered with a white, gauzy fabric. Here she knelt and hit her chest, before disappearing back into the eerie shadows from which she had magically appeared.
Centuries later, a tragic discovery was to shed further light on the possible cause of these ghostly apparitions.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the European population professed total faith in reason. The enlightenment of the previous century had swept away any beliefs that could not scientifically proven, but are you sure that everything in this world can be explained?
No one knows how much of the stories are true but, when builders were making changes to the building for the Bank of Castille, they came across a woman’s corpse in the cellar with a dagger in the heart. The skeleton dated from the 16th century, was found with a bag full of coins from the time of Felipe II.

Either way, over the years, the House of the Seven Chimneys has had a number of illustrious visitors, including Charles I of England, and it is still standing today, just off the Gran Vía in the Chueca area, overlooking the Plaza del Rey.
Unfortunately we may never know the answers to its ghost stories. Although perhaps it’s for the best, as some things are better left buried in the past!

Images from web – Google Research