You're standing near Chalet Ficalho, a Victorian-era villa built for Cascais's seaside nobility.
Last reviewed 5 October 2026 · A two-minute read · 2870 BC–2025
The short answer
Chalet Ficalho in Cascais is a summer house built in 1887-1888 for António Máximo da Costa e Silva and Maria Josefa de Melo, whose daughter Helena needed sea air for weak lungs. The family kept it for over a century before a 2021-2023 restoration turned it into a nine-room hotel.
Paula Rego Museum, Cascais, Portugal. Architect: Eduardo Souto de Moura. — 2009 · Pedro Ribeiro Simões from Lisboa, Portugal · CC BY 2.0
1887 to 1908
A summer house was built for a sick daughter
Chalet Ficalho is a 19th-century summer house that is now a small hotel. It was built in 1887 and 1888 for António Máximo da Costa e Silva and his wife, Maria Josefa de Melo, who would later become the Countess of Ficalho. António Máximo da Costa e Silva and Maria Josefa de Melo built it to be near the royal family, who spent late summers in Cascais, and near the tennis courts of the Sporting Clube de Cascais, just down the road. Their daughter Helena had weak lungs, and a doctor had told them sea air would help her.
The house opened with a grand party on October 21, 1898, written up in the national papers. Maria Josefa's father, a botany professor who helped found Lisbon's Botanical Garden, designed the garden himself, filling it with exotic plants.
1898 to 1941
A countess kept the chalet for decades
Maria Josefa de Melo kept the house as a holiday retreat for decades after that grand 1898 opening, right up until her death in 1941.
1902 to 1908
A separation left one woman holding the house
Four years after the house opened, António and Maria Josefa separated. Maria Josefa kept the chalet as her own holiday home.
Maria Josefa de Melo held onto it until King Carlos I was shot dead in Lisbon in 1908. Fearing more attacks on noble families, the household fled into exile, and the chalet sat empty.
1941 to 1963
The girl the house was built for inherited it
Maria Josefa de Melo's daughter, Helena Mello da Costa, the girl the house was built for, inherited it. Helena used it as a summer home with her own children and grandchildren. In 1963, she moved in for good, making it her permanent residence.
1963 to 2021
Mother passed the chalet to daughter for generations
Helena's daughter, Maria d'Assumpção, inherited the chalet next and lived there full time. The house stayed in the same family for well over a century, passed from mother to daughter.
2021 to 2023
A restoration saved the original woodwork and tiles
The family began a near two-year restoration, finished in 2023. Workers saved the original woodwork, tiles, furniture, chandeliers, and the chalet's red shutters. The architect Raúl Vieira oversaw the work.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation gave the chalet the Maria Tereza and Vasco Vilalva Prize for heritage restoration. The jury praised its "deep respect for the original design."
2023 to now
Guests now sleep beneath the Viscount's wooden ceilings
The chalet now runs as a small nine-room hotel. Guests sleep under the same wooden ceilings and walk the same tiled floors the Viscount's family knew. Outside, the garden Maria Josefa's father planted still stands, its palms and eucalyptus grown tall over more than a century. The Sporting Clube de Cascais, where King Carlos I once played tennis, sits a short walk down the same road.
The chalet's red shutters and salmon-colored walls still look out over the garden a 19th-century botanist designed for his own granddaughter.
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A Portuguese ship wrecked off Cascais sometime between 1575 and 1625, found in 2018 still carrying bronze cannons, Chinese ceramics, spices and cowry shells used in the slave trade.
Spanish troops under Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, came ashore near Cascais on 28 July 1580 during the fight over the Portuguese succession, and a fort was later built at the landing spot.
The chalet, then called Chalet Costa e Silva, was inaugurated on 21 October 1898 with a party reported in the national press, with fado performed by journalists from the Diário Ilustrado.
Four years after the house went up, António Máximo da Costa e Silva and his wife Maria Josefa de Mello separated for reasons that were never explained, and she kept the house.
After King Carlos I was assassinated in 1908, Chalet Ficalho was left abandoned for a time as the aristocratic family feared further attacks and went into exile.
After Maria Josefa de Mello died in 1941, the house passed down through her daughter, then granddaughter, and remains with the same family's line to this day.
On 31 March 1952 a train on the Linha de Cascais derailed near the Gibalta lighthouse after landslides caused by bad weather, killing ten people and injuring thirty-eight.
A two-year restoration completed in 2023 won Chalet Ficalho the Maria Tereza and Vasco Vilalva Prize from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, before it reopened as a small hotel.
Chalet Ficalho was a private summer house, built in 1887-1888 for António Máximo da Costa e Silva and his wife Maria Josefa de Melo, later Countess of Ficalho, before it became a hotel in 2023.
Why was Chalet Ficalho built?
It was built so the couple's daughter Helena, who had weak lungs, could benefit from sea air on doctor's advice, and so the family could be near the royal family's summer court and the Sporting Clube de Cascais tennis courts.
What happened at Chalet Ficalho in 1908?
After King Carlos I was assassinated in Lisbon in 1908, the aristocratic family feared further attacks and went into exile, leaving the chalet abandoned for a time.
Who lived in Chalet Ficalho over the years?
The house passed from Maria Josefa de Melo to her daughter Helena Mello da Costa, then to Helena's daughter Maria d'Assumpção, staying in the same family for well over a century.
When was Chalet Ficalho restored?
A near two-year restoration finished in 2023, overseen by architect Raúl Vieira, which saved the original woodwork, tiles, furniture, chandeliers and red shutters and won the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's Maria Tereza and Vasco Vilalva Prize.
What is Chalet Ficalho used for now?
It operates as a small nine-room hotel, with guests staying beneath the original wooden ceilings and walking the tiled floors once used by the Viscount's family.
