It is also the city of architectural mestizaje, a blending of cultures and styles. On the plan of the Roman city founded in 123 BC, the Islamic medina, the Gothic city, the baroque palaces and modernista fantasy were layered one over another, and each layer left a trace of the one before. The Cathedral and the Almudaina, facing each other above the Parc de la Mar, condense this dialogue on a monumental scale. The casals repeat it on a domestic scale, in every courtyard, every staircase and every coffered ceiling hidden behind the windows of their interiors.

The architecture studio Feliumorell, founded by Luis Feliu and Carlos Morell, has restored one of these listed and protected buildings, turning it into a home for its current owner, Leif Steiner, an American advertising executive and photographer. The interior design grew out of a collaboration with industrial designer Jaume Martorell, and the whole process, from the planning application to the completion of works, took almost six years. It was a long time, in keeping with the delicacy of the project.

Cal Poeta Colom

The building, known today as Cal Poeta Colom and formerly as Can Andreu, is a baroque palace built in the second half of the 18th century. The Colom family acquired it in 1930 and renovated it completely. The Mallorcan poet Guillem Colom (Sóller, 1890 – Palma, 1979) lived there. Its courtyard, in a French-influenced Mannerist style, is organised around red marble columns shaped like inverted pyramids, a stone staircase with a wrought-iron balustrade and a well that retains its original ironwork. The drawings that Santiago Sebastián included in Arquitectura mallorquina moderna y contemporánea show the same courtyard as it survives today: the double arcade, the foot of the staircase and the iron fan that crowns the balustrade.

Further inside, the building holds other eras. There are wooden coffered ceilings in the entrance hall and in the estudi, the mezzanine, and in the semi-basement a stone arch from the Muslim period survives. The home occupies precisely these levels, and its story begins with a patient work of assembly. The owner bought, one by one, four separate properties within the building: an apartment on the mezzanine, a commercial unit in the semi-basement and two storerooms at courtyard level. The result is 235 square metres over two floors.

An incision within

The central challenge of the project was to join four pieces at different heights within a protected building. The architects responded with an intervention they themselves describe as “surgical”. Their analysis of the properties revealed a single concrete slab, the only unprotected structural element, and in it they opened the void through which the interior staircase now runs. The other connections make use of existing openings in the walls. All the timber floors, stone vaults and walls were thus preserved intact, without a single new opening.

The staircase therefore takes on a leading role in the house. Designed by the architects for this place and built by the young local blacksmith Juan Jalao, it traces a light white line alongside a wall of marès ashlar. Beside it, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase with a library ladder holds books, carvings, taxidermy birds and objects collected on journeys. In the void hangs a lamp designed by three hands, Contain’s, the architects’ and the owner’s: a constellation of alabaster globes suspended at different heights, some of them with small bird figures perched on top. The gesture sets up a direct dialogue with the palace. Where the courtyard displays its baroque balustrade, the house responds with contemporary ironwork, also handmade on the island.

Once the connection was resolved, the project prioritised unifying spaces and opening up long views. The openings in the thick walls work as frames. Through one of them you see the kitchen beneath the coffered ceiling, and through another the bedroom, with its walnut headboard and its wall of masks.

Ceilings and walls take centre stage

In a house with a 16th-century coffered ceiling, marès vaults, ashlar walls and archaeological remains, the decisive choice of the interior design was to step into the background. The architects chose a continuous floor of Huguet micro-terrazzo in neutral-toned 100 × 100 cm tiles, and simple furniture with walnut as the common thread. The materials are high in quality and discreet in presence, at the service of the true protagonists: the ceilings and walls the house already had.

The home unfolds around the main room, which brings together living room, dining room and kitchen beneath the coffered ceiling. Its 2.80-metre height makes the space both contained and generous. Its windows, veiled by linen curtains, look onto a quiet lane in the old town. The kitchen, a Bulthaup b3 model in sawn American walnut developed with Bulthaup Nicolau, stands against a wall of exposed ashlar. The island, topped with a slab of Perla Venata quartzite by Levantina in an aged finish, gathers everyday life beneath the grid of coffers. The sofa and stools by Carl Hansen & Søn, the Vitra stool and the pieces by La Pecera complete a scene in which each piece of furniture carries its own weight while letting the carved wood of the ceiling keep its prominence.

The semi-basement, a former commercial unit, is where the house reaches its deepest layer. Here the marès vaults cover the bedroom and the bathroom, and a concealed line of light at their springing, together with fittings by Davide Groppi, reveals the texture of every block. Several glazed openings in the floor reveal the archaeological remains below, among them a cavity holding a group of clay amphorae. In the bathroom, beneath the vault, the Borghi bathtub by Antonio Lupi, in translucent green resin, introduces the most unexpected note of colour in the house: an emphatically contemporary object that, when lit, seems to hold water and light at once. Beside it, Jean Prouvé’s stool for Vitra and the stone bench and washbasins carved to measure by the craftsman Camposol bring the scene back to the scale of craft.

The owner and his contribution to the project

The house belongs to Leif Steiner, an American advertising executive and photographer specialising in portraiture. His work consists of close-up photographs of people from different backgrounds alongside their personal belongings (jewellery, clothing, hairstyles), celebrating their cultures and traditions. A tireless traveller, he found in Mallorca the European base from which to prepare his expeditions.

The design process followed the logic of his profession. At every major decision, the architects presented a series of proposals and the owner chose one of them, which the studio then developed until it became reality. The resulting house is, in its authors’ words, eclectic, because it reconciles elements of very different origins. On one side are the architectures of several centuries the building already contained; on the other, the objects the owner has gathered on his travels around the world: masks from Cameroon, statues from Indonesia, objects from Ethiopia, furniture from Morocco, kokeshi dolls and polychrome masks, all displayed throughout the house.

There is something of a self-portrait in this home. Just as Steiner photographs his sitters alongside what identifies them, Feliumorell has designed a building with its most precious jewels on view: the coffered ceiling, the vault, the Muslim arch, the amphorae beneath the floor. Against this backdrop, the owner’s collections add one more layer to a house made of layers, like the city of Palma itself. The home of the poet Guillem Colom now welcomes a traveller, and the mestizaje that defines Palma, that of its courtyards, its churches and its palaces, finds here a domestic continuity, discreet and deeply respectful of its history.

Materials and furniture

Flooring: micro-terrazzo by Huguet, 100 × 100 cm.
Staircase and brass grilles: Juan Jalao (blacksmith), designed by Feliumorell.
Kitchen: Bulthaup b3 in sawn American walnut, with Bulthaup Nicolau; Perla Venata quartzite worktop by Levantina; Bora induction hob; Gaggenau oven; Blanco Fontas S2 tap.
Bathrooms: Borghi 180 bathtub and washbasin unit by Antonio Lupi; taps by Gessi and CEA; bespoke stone washbasins and bench by Camposol; sanitaryware by Catalano.
Switches and sockets: Font Barcelona, More series.
Curtains: linen.
Furniture: sofa and kitchen stools by Carl Hansen & Søn; stools by Vitra (including the Jean Prouvé model); stool and coffee table by La Pecera; bespoke joinery by Estils i Formes; Hästens beds.
Lighting: staircase pendant and bedroom wall lights by Contain; island light and mirrors by Occhio; vault lighting by Davide Groppi; technical lighting by iGuzzini.

Project: Home in Cal Poeta Colom.
Location: Old town of Palma, Mallorca
Architecture: Feliumorell (Luis Feliu, Carlos Morell)
Interior design: Feliumorell in collaboration with Jaume Martorell.
Area: 235 m² over 2 floors. Completed: 2026.
Photography: Neus Pastor.
Source: Feliumorell.

Feliumorell

Founded in Palma in 2017 by architects Luis Feliu and Carlos Morell, Feliumorell works across the whole island of Mallorca. Its practice starts from a simple and demanding conviction: each project must find its answer in its place, through contemporary, sustainable architecture that engages with the island’s building tradition and brings it into the language of its time. Before founding the studio, both partners spent years working in local and national practices. That background translates today into a craft equally attentive to new build and to rehabilitation, where the memory of buildings is treated as project material. The team is completed by building engineer Ramón Ripoll and architect Lara Lamas.

Luis Feliu

Luis Feliu’s training had a strongly international character. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Marseille (2010–2011) and at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí in Mexico (2011–2012), before completing his Master of Architecture at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 2013. That same year he settled in Mallorca as an independent architect. For more than four years he signed projects for single-family homes, renovations and rehabilitations, alongside intensive technical work (energy certifications, adaptation of commercial premises, valuations and planning studies) that gave him a detailed knowledge of the island’s territory and its regulations. Between 2014 and 2018 he also collaborated with nb arquitectes on drafting and designing projects. His interest in the legal framework of the discipline led him to earn the university Expert qualification in planning law and land-use planning at the Universitat de les Illes Balears (2015–2016). This specialisation is especially meaningful in settings as delicate as the historic centre of Palma.

Carlos Morell

An architect and co-founder of Feliumorell, Carlos Morell has been part of the studio since its beginnings in 2017. He previously built his career in local and national architecture practices, experience he now brings to the studio’s shared practice in Palma.