Cadaqués Villa With Dalí-Era Art Pedigree Enters the Market at €9.5 Million

The Staempfli House, a mid-century seafront villa in Cadaqués on Spain’s Costa Brava, has been listed for sale through Spain Sotheby’s International Realty. Built in 1958 for the Swiss-born art dealer George William Staempfli, the house was later rebuilt by architects Peter Harnden and Lanfranco Bombelli. Wallpaper first reported the listing, which returns attention to a building that once acted as a meeting point for Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Isamu Noguchi and other major figures in post-war art.

Key facts

| Asking price | €9,500,000, as reported by Wallpaper |
| Location | Seafront in Cadaqués, Costa Brava, Cap de Creus Natural Park |
| Built | 1958 for George William Staempfli; rebuilt in the late 1950s by Harnden and Bombelli |
| Notable guests | Dalí, Duchamp, Noguchi, Harry Bertoia, Xavier Corberó, among others |

A Dealer’s House in an Artists’ Town

Staempfli moved to the United States in 1935, worked at the New York dealership M. Knoedler & Company, and served as curator of paintings at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts from 1954 to 1956. In 1959 he opened the Staempfli Gallery on 77th Street with his second wife, Emily McFadden Staempfli. The Cadaqués house served both as a retreat and as a place to entertain the European artists he represented. The town was a favourite spot for Dalí, whose nearby Casa-Museu in Portlligat is a short walk from the property, and other visitors included Picasso, Miró and Richard Hamilton.

Harnden and Bombelli’s Rebuilding

The property underwent an extensive reconstruction in the late 1950s by the British architect Peter Harnden and the Italian architect Lanfranco Bombelli, whose practice was the exhibition design specialists PGHA Peter Graham Harnden Associates. The pair were regular visitors to Cadaqués and built extensively for themselves and other artists in the region. Their work at Staempfli House combines traditional tiles and timber with fixtures that were modern for their time, giving the interiors an eclectic mid-century character.

A Stage for Art

The house was designed to work as residence and display space. It retains a floating fireplace with integrated seating, a tiled water-mirror sculpture terrace, timber-clad ceilings, niches, arches and built-in furniture. Rooms leave generous wall area for art, while the terraced layout gives upper balconies views across the town’s main beach. Staempfli kept his New York gallery until 1988, representing Dalí alongside Paul Delvaux and Elmer Bischoff, before retiring to Maryland, where he died in 1999.

Why It Matters for Architecture Readers

The listing is notable not as a celebrity property sale but as a case study in mid-century architectural preservation. The house brings together the work of two regional architects, a protected coastal setting and a documented art-historical guest list, making it a rare opportunity to see how such layered heritage is valued on the open market. It also keeps attention on Cadaqués as a place where experimental architecture, museum culture and beach town life continue to overlap.

The price and availability details come from the Wallpaper article and the Sotheby’s listing materials cited there. As with private sales, conditions can change, so prospective buyers and researchers should confirm current status directly with Spain Sotheby’s International Realty.

Source: Wallpaper, “The intriguing Staempfli House on Costa Brava was once home to a Surrealist art dealer,” https://www.wallpaper.com/architecture/residential/costa-brava-staempfli-house

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