<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" It&amp;#039;s only fitting that Lorenzo Castillo happened upon the Madrid apartment building that would become his future home while en route to El Rastro, the city&amp;#039;s famous flea market. &amp;quot;Madrid&amp;#039;s old neighborhoods harbor hidden treasures,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s one of the things I love most about the city.&amp;quot; Castillo was immediately drawn to the building. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s very madrile\u00F1o,&amp;quot; he says\u2014in other words, it&amp;#039;s quintessentially Madrid\u2014&amp;quot;with a neoclassical stone fa\u00E7ade that is noble in scale but remarkably simple.&amp;quot; The portera, or doorwoman, told him the history of the building, which was constructed in the 17th century and was once a convent: Located on the border between the now-trendy neighborhoods of Lavapi\u00E9s and Barrio de las Letras, it became one of the most prestigious addresses in the Spanish capital during the 18th and 19th centuries. A new fa\u00E7ade added in the 1770s by Ventura Rodr\u00EDguez, the architect of many iconic monuments in Madrid\u2014including the sculptures of Neptune and Cybele on the Paseo del Prado\u2014heightened the building&amp;#039;s allure.  Two days after Castillo&amp;#039;s first visit, a half-floor apartment on an upper story was his. That was 10 years ago, when he was building a reputation as a leading antiques dealer in Spain. Now he runs his own interior design business, with assistance from his partner, Alfonso Reyero. Castillo&amp;#039;s projects range from a historic Andalusian country house to a London restaurant slated to open this summer. He recently renovated Madrid&amp;#039;s Santo Mauro, giving the hotel a five-star upgrade.  As Castillo&amp;#039;s business has grown, so have his domestic needs. Nearly four years ago he sold that first apartment, along with his collection of furniture and art, to purchase and renovate an 11,000-square-foot space downstairs, spread over two floors.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Spanish Conquest.&amp;quot;   After the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939, the rooms that now house Castillo&amp;#039;s apartment served as the warehouse for one of the city&amp;#039;s theatrical costumers. Such legendary figures as Maria Callas and Placido Domingo were fitted there for productions at the nearby Royal Opera House, Castillo says. By the time he bought the apartment, most of its signature architectural details were gone. &amp;quot;The marble fireplace surrounds had been sold off or stolen during the war, and huge pieces of the decorative stucco moldings had crumbled or fallen off,&amp;quot; he says. He spent a year supervising the renovation and traveling around Europe in search of period floors, fireplaces, fittings, and hardware. He became friends with the costume company&amp;#039;s former owner, who could still conjure up memories of the apartment&amp;#039;s once-glorious appearance.  Castillo managed to make the apartment look both classic and up-to-date. He wove a rich and sumptuous tapestry of timeless design by mixing pedigreed antiques and vintage pieces, including a desk of green leather and gilt bronze made in the 1940s by Marc du Plantier for the prince of Bavaria, tapestries by Rubens, a massive plaster bust from Paris&amp;#039;s \u00C9cole des Beaux-Arts, and 1970s Op Art.  A carriageway behind the massive iron front doors leads to a glass-enclosed courtyard used as an indoor garden and decorated with chaises upholstered in a Madeleine Castaing fabric, the cast of a sculpture by Michelangelo, and an abstract painting by Lorenzo&amp;#039;s brother Santiago Castillo\u2014one of many throughout the house. A grand staircase, the type one expects to find in a Roman palazzo, ascends to a gallery where Castillo has continued the courtyard&amp;#039;s motif of plantings and black-and-white floor tiles. He cleverly deployed white trellis as a baseboard and as molding around the doors and balconies. Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Spanish Conquest.&amp;quot;  Indeed, many of the room-defining elements are Castillo&amp;#039;s own subtle but beautifully executed designs, such as the coffered, mirrored panels that cover the walls of the glittering dining room, or the shimmering black-lacquer bookshelves with brass inlay that fill the library.  The upper floor is dominated by the 120-foot-long drawing room, the kind of space usually seen only in the backgrounds of princely portraits at the Prado. With five balconies and four seating areas, it is a sophisticated\u2014and sometimes irreverent\u2014mix of periods, styles, and materials. French Second Empire, 19th-century Swedish, and 1950s Italian furniture share the stage with faded antique maps and crisp steel sculptures from the &amp;#039;70s. A massive hand-loomed carpet designed by Castillo provides the finishing touch. Needless to say, such singular spaces make for fabulous parties. Castillo has hosted many, from intimate dinners to private couture fashion shows. But first and foremost, the home is where he and Reyero live and work every day. &amp;quot;In the heat of summer we&amp;#039;ll have lunch in the gallery, and on cold winter evenings we dine by candle\u00ADlight in the mirrored dining room,&amp;quot; he says. And since the home also serves as Castillo&amp;#039;s studio and showroom, he frequently slips into the guest suite to find a quiet place to concentrate. &amp;quot;We truly live in the entire house,&amp;quot; he declares proudly.  Click here to see the gallery for &amp;quot;Spanish Conquest.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/house-interiors/a4112/spanish-conquest-a-72956/?src=shelter_footer>