Castillo Lehuedé, Historic house in Bellavista, Santiago, Chile

Castillo Lehuedé, also called Casa Roja, stands on Plaza Mori in the Bellavista neighbourhood. Above a stone-clad ground-level base rise two floors and a large eclectic mansard roof. Inside are American oak floors, a wood-panelled dining room, stained-glass doors between dining room and salon, coffered salon ceilings, large bedroom fireplaces and varied balconies and terraces.

The site on Plaza Mori was bought by Pedro Lehuedé in 1927, after passing through the Brandau family and tracing back to a chacra owned by Catalan-born José de Borrás from the late 18th century. Architect Federico Bieregel designed the house from 1920 and built it between 1922 and 1924. The Lehuedé family kept it until about 1945, when it was sold to a Russian immigrant and divided into rented sections.

The house was later sold by the family to a Russian immigrant and subdivided for rent, almost without exception to residents linked to art, architecture, decoration and advertising. Its name, Casa Roja, comes from the red tone of its facade on Plaza Mori.

The house stands on Plaza Mori in Bellavista, not Providencia. After the 2010 earthquake the party wall with the climbing plant separated more than 20 cm from the rest of the upper floor, prompting a rehabilitation begun in 2011 and completed in 2013 by architects Jorge Ávila and Cecilia Wolff, with structural calculations by Leopoldo Dominichetti, to turn it into a small hotel.

After the 2010 earthquake, the party wall covered in climbing plants separated more than 20 cm from the rest of the building on the upper floor. The restoration by architects Jorge Ávila and Cecilia Wolff ran from 2010 to 2013 and took over three years, with structural calculations by Leopoldo Dominichetti. The survey before work included more than 200 drawings of each room.