A sculptor's spectacularly creative farmhouse in Mallorca
“When I first bought the land, the idea was to use it as a campsite – a place to bring the kids, sleep in tents and have fun in the summer,” says Michael Prentice, an American sculptor and investor. Today, he speaks from his double-height living room, which features, among other decorative flourishes, a ceiling modelled on the mudéjar designs found in the Royal Palace of La Almudaina in Palma. A tent it is not.
The story from campsite to finca begins in the early 1980s, when Prentice’s work was included in a show in the Grand Palais in Paris. It was there he met the Austrian businessman-turned-sculptor Ben Jakober, who, together with his partner and fellow artist Yannick Vu, had built a house in Mallorca with the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy in the 1970s (Jakober and Vu would later turn their house into an art foundation, which is still open today). As it happened, Prentice had spent the last 10 years summering on Mallorca in a little hut, which, when he took on a long-term rental, had no electricity or water. But the lease had run out, and so, too, had his marriage. ‘When I told my sob story to Jakober, he suggested I come and visit him,’ he says.
Jakober ended up persuading Prentice to buy a four-acre plot neighbouring his. “There was nothing here. It used to be a little farm, and all that was left was a half-crumbled wall, a pile of stones and a small barn,” says Prentice. After a couple of summers, when it came to building something more comfortable than a tent, he decided the position of the barn would determine the front of a new house, reckoning that it would have been chosen carefully. “Sure enough, even though it's a south eastern exposure, the air comes down the valley, cooling the front side of the house.”
For the building of what would be a six-bedroom home, comprised of a main house and a separate annexe, all set around terraces and landscaped grounds on a sloped site, Prentice called to his team of workmen he had employed in Paris, where his sculpture studio was based for 30 years. “They were strong, and were used to working with stone, so they came and learnt how to build a house. It was very much built in the spirit of, ‘Hey, let’s give it a go,’” he says.
Today, the house is approached via a long private drive that culminates in a gently winding path ascending to the front door. The path intersects two cultivated terraces – traditional to Mallorca – the upper one populated by dome-shaped topiary bushes, sheltered by a giant ancient olive tree, the lower flanked by a row of Cypress trees, behind which an olive grove slopes towards the sea. The rest of the four acres are given to productive olive and citrus trees, as well as vegetable patches and a seawater pool with outdoor living space.
If the grounds are pure Mediterranean country house playbook, the interiors veer delightfully away from expectations and are the result of Prentice’s organic creative process, led by his far-ranging sources of inspiration and give-it-a-go spirit. The kitchen, for example, features walls painted by long-term collaborator Jacob Kapica – in designs inspired by African mud patterns – a large-scale mosaic modelled on one in Tunis’ Bardo National Museum, as well as 19th-century Mallorcan decorative tiles. The hallway adjacent to the kitchen, meanwhile, is decorated in a pattern inspired by a motif found in a book about Pompeii given to Prentice by his mother.
While most of the six bedrooms are seductive in their rustic simplicity, furnished with antique Mallorcan furniture – ‘found on the street,’ says Prentice – as well pieces from Kerala, where he once spent two and a half years making work. The so-called Japanese bedroom is a delightful folly; ‘I’m a monkey in the Japanese zodiac, so the monkey in the tree is me!” says Prentice with typical humour. ‘Jacob was really into Japanese art, so I let him go all-out, and he really went for it,’ he says.
At almost 80, Prentice is no longer making work but instead fills his time between investing in medical start-ups and running Alta Arts, an arts foundation in Houston, Texas, he established in 2020. He makes it to Mallorca twice a year, once in July and then in October for the estate’s olive oil harvest, renting out the house the rest of the time. A luxury, no doubt, but it seems like Prentice hasn’t fully shaken off his original intentions for something simpler: “I have a friend who lives in Bangkok who loves fabric, and she wants to create a kind of tent down by the pool. I think it’d be fun to have a sort of sleeping space out there,” he says.
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Elliot Sheppard2/25A chandelier fashioned from a reclaimed wagon wheel hangs in the double-height part of the main living space.
Elliot Sheppard3/25Like much of the furniture in the house, the dining room table was made by Prentice and his team. The tusk in the corner was made by Prentice in India using black granite.
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Elliot Sheppard5/25The built-in sofas in the main living space are now upholstered in a variegated fabric, but have looked different over the years. ‘I had a French wife who wanted everything Mediterranean, blue and white,’ says Prentice.
Elliot Sheppard6/25The main living room features a hand-painted ceiling inspired by the mudéjar designs found in the Royal Palace of La Almudaina in Palma, as well as built-in sofas and bespoke wooden furniture. The glass in front of the fireplace can be removed to create an open fire, warming the space in the colder months. Decorative panels, meanwhile, cleverly conceal air conditioner units.
Elliot Sheppard7/25The kitchen’s walls are hand-painted in designs inspired by African mud patterns. Traditional Mallorcan tiles were also used, and the floor is laid with terracotta tiles handmade in the island’s mountainous region. The mosaic were modelled on one found in Tunis’ Bardo National Museum.
Elliot Sheppard8/25The kitchen leads directly onto the terrace, where dried tree branches are arranged in a shade-providing canopy.
Elliot Sheppard9/25Some of the antique Mallorcan tiles used in the bathroom date back to the 19th century
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Elliot Sheppard12/25The hallway is decorated in a pattern inspired by a Pompeiian motif.
Elliot Sheppard13/25The Japanese bedroom is decorated in gold leaf and a custom mural painted by Prentice’s long-term collaborator, Jacob Kapica.
Elliot Sheppard14/25The bed and stool are Mallorcan antiques.
Elliot Sheppard15/25In one of the bedrooms in the annexe, there is a desk modelled on a traditional Mallorcan design but enlarged and remade by Prentice’s team. The horse’s head is an antique of south Indian provenance.
Elliot Sheppard16/25In the main bedroom, the bed was modelled on a traditional Mallorcan design, but remade to fit a queen-sized mattress.
Elliot Sheppard17/25The chair was found in Kerala, where Prentice spent two and a half years making work.
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Elliot Sheppard19/25The chairs around the outdoor dining were picked up in front of a restaurant near Prentice’s studio in Paris and brought to Mallorca.
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