raposeira de são joão: your madeira holiday home
Holiday home in Madeira? Undoubtedly, these were the words you typed into your browser in order to find us. Welcome to our website! Our lovingly and beautifully renovated typically Madeiran farmhouse is for rent for your Madeira holiday, when we are not here but sailing the seven seas in our yacht Heerenleed. Read all about the house, its surroundings, or go through the blog for more background information about the house, the island and interesting stuff you can do or see. Or have a look at the Bed and Breakfast possibilities we offer in winter when we are here ourselves. The above menu will make it easy to find your way.
Or just jump to the images first, or have a look at our prices. Or find out about the inside of our house.
a detached house surrounded by nature
Our house is not your typical holiday rental house. It is not part of a rental compound and certainly not situated in a residential estate. Our house is a detached house in a hamlet of a handful of farmhouses, like our house used to be as well. It is situated in the middle of nature in the quiet West of Madeira
Rent your madeira holiday home directly from us!
You rent the house directly from us. Not via an agent or other go-betweens that only push up the price. Many who look for a holiday home in Madeira end up with an agency and easily pay 30 to 35% more than the price we ask. There is a logic to that: an agency needs to earn money too, but since they don’t offer any extra service, so it is a link we can eliminate. A quick look at our prices will make everything clear.
a real Madeira home, not just another holiday rental
The house is a real home. Furnished and equipped for permanent occupation. So no cheap and low quality interior, but our own high quality furniture, of high end contemporary design, combined with some family antiques and – mostly contemporary – art. We had to bring everything from the Netherlands, as the Madeira average taste is a far cry from what we think a home should look like. No cheap Ikea reproductions on the walls, but a choice of contemporary and older art, all unique pieces or numbered works out of limited series. We simply love beautiful things. The result is an interior ecoration that you won’t often find in a Madeira holiday home – or anywhere else for that matter.
where in Madeira is our house situated?
Our house is situated in a small hamlet in rural Southwest Madeira, far from mass tourism, a little hidden, but still easy to reach. Its name is ‘Raposeira de São João’. It is a delightful house, for winter (when we are here ourselves) and for summer. Its elevated position ensures a spectacular seaview, or, rather, a wide view over the Atlantic Ocean, and a view over the woods and hills of São João and São Lourenço, neighbourhoods of the village of Fajã da Ovelha, that in its turn belongs to the council of Calheta on the sunny South side of the Island. Here is a link to the Google-map with the exact location of our house.
cool nights
That same elevated position ensures pleasant cool night temperatures in summer for a good night’s sleep! If our are looking for a holiday home in Madeira, you have found the right spot. It is perfectly located for sun seekers, but also for hiking – the Madeiran Levadas are famous for their hiking possibilities. An ideal sport for those who seek quiet and nature lovers alike. The house is for rent at any time that we are not here ourselves to enjoy it.
rental car
Looking at the map, you will see that we are not in the Funchal agglomeration. Therefore, you need a car to get to the house. Buses in our area are few and far between. You can use them to get you to a starting point for a walk, but it is not practical to try them to get there from the airport. We have created a page about the tips and tricks of car hire in Madeira. Do consult it before you decide on a rental car.
Holiday Home? Or rather not a Holiday Home?
Our house is not just a holiday rental house or cottage. It really isn’t a holiday home at all. It is an authentic Madeiran house of which there aren’t all that many left that survived the urge for modernisation. We have renovated it and brought it back to ist former glory, but we also gave it all the modern comforts we are used to. We did extend it somewhat, in style though, to allow for a modern kitchen and a second bedroom with ensuite facilities.
Still, it has remained a typical Madeiran house, meant and furbished for permanent residency. Therefore, it really has all modern comfort you can expect from a real home. It is suitable for up to 4 people. When e first found it, the house was uninhabitable and in decay. We have lovingly renovated it and made it into what it is today: a comfortable but still authentic house, full of light. It is a house that is typical for traditional Madeira architecture. We preserved ould elements but gave it an airy, contemporary interior. It’s not just a holiday rental, but it is, above all, our home when we are on the island and live here semi-permanently.
not easy
The road to the house as it is now has not been easy. We wanted a house in Madeira, that we could rent out in summer when we aren’t here. What we bought wasn’t a ruin, but it was not a habitable house either. The images of the old house as it wa when we found it, of its utter destruction and its rebuilding you can see in the page ‘then and now’ The images of the house as it is now you can see in the page ‘picture book‘.
the page about our house to find all the information concerning the house itself. We have put the images there, to give you a good idea of what it looks like. Obviously, we have always cleaned the house and cleared the mess before the photos were taken. But we have also created a picture book of the house in use, sometimes with a bit of mess, food being prepared in the kitchen, and even people in the images. Sit back and enjoy, and don’t mind the mess!
equipment
Many holiday rental homes have rudimentary equipment. Dull knives, crockery and cutlery exactly limited to the maximum number of people the house sleeps. No kettle and no teapot and often no dishwasher. As we live in the house in winter, it has not been equipped as a holiday rental, but as a proper home. And we think there are things you simply need in a comfortable house. Just check the page listing the equipment and you will find nothing is lacking.
away from the crowds
We have written a page about the surroundings of the house. It is Madeira’s quiet south-west that combines the sun hours of the South coast with the rugged nature the much wetter north. The area is still quiet, not built-up like the more easterly areas of the island. A place where you can really relax and enjoy the stunning beauty of Madeira. Far from the crowds but still easy to find if you follow the directions we send you if you rent the house.
Questions?
If you still have questions the website doesn’t seem to answer, do net hesitate to pick up the phone and call us or drop us a line via email or WhatsApp. You will find all our details in the page with our contact details.
Madeira holiday home in context
Of course, this website is about our Madeira holiday rental. Still, you won’t go to Madeira just to enjoy a beautiful house. You will want to enjoy beautiful Madeira and everything it has to offer. Therefore, to give some context to our Madeira holiday home, we have added a blog to our website. Since about a year, we have added an English version to it, and the more recent articles have been published both in Dutch and in English. We have published small articles about our garden, about the house itself, about the beautiful walks we made and about travel to and from the island.
Lately, we publish more in-depth articles, like the one about the exotic fruits and vegetables you can buy in the small farmer’s markets, about the levadas of Madeira and, yes, also about the things related to covid-19 which has heavily affected travel, obviously. This way we have placed our holiday home into context, giving you a broader idea about the island, its nature, its geography, even its politics and its culture. If you would like to stay in touch with the island, just scroll to the bottom of the page and subscribe to our news mail.
The flower in the background of this page is the blue Agapanthus. She also exists in white, and we have both colours in our garden. They grow abundantly along the smaller troads of Madeira. They flower in early summer.
This page was last updated on March 1st, 2022.
