OPENING THE DOORS TO HER MAJESTIC MAJORCAN MANSION MARIA JUAN DE SENTMENAT ▬ TELLS OF MAGICAL FAMILY MOMENTS AND HOW IT ONCE PLAYED HOST TO HOLLYWOOD STAR GRACE KELLY

'Houses are to be enjoyed with the people we love that's a belief I inherited from my grandmother'

- CRISTINA LORA, ANA FERNANDEZ DE CORDOBA

If ever a house was well named, it is María Juan de Sentmenat’s idyllic estate on Majorca. Bellagre, which means “beautiful countryside” in Latin, sits amid a fragrant pine forest and lush gardens full of olives, oranges and lemons, on a hill overlooking the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean.

Although the estate lies just a few minutes from the island’s capital, Palma, it is an oasis of calm.

María’s grandfather, Vicente Juan de Sentmenat, Count of Ribas, built the house in 1945 as a summer residence, but it became his family’s full-time home.

He loved to gather the extended Sentmenat clan here during the holidays, as María, the head of a top PR agency, recalls. “There were so many of us that we sat down to eat in three shifts – it was great fun,” she laughs, telling how she’s relished re-creating that childhood experience for her daughter, also called María and now 18.

And, she adds, it isn’t only family who’ve fallen for Bellagre’s charms. As Monaco’s consul in Spain, the Count of Ribas hosted Prince Rainier of Monaco and his Hollywood bride Princess Grace – Grace Kelly – here when they visited Majorca.

With its handsome facade of hand-carved stone, its courtyard and tower, the picturesque palazzo proved a hit with the royal couple, as photos and mementos show.

María, what do you love most about this house?

"Bellagre has great sentimental value for me.

"I lived here until I was 16 and it's full of the best memories of my childhood and adolescence.

"In the summer, all my cousins from Madrid would come to stay.