History of the Casa de Madrid

Written by her son, Felipe Guardiola Medina, June 2022

Marta Medina Muro(1944-2022) was a Sevillian aristocrat, architect and art historian who had a long and succesful career of organizing international art exhibitions and restoring and decorating houses and palaces.

Marta was born in Seville, the daughter of Felipe Medina Benjumea, perhaps Seville´s most succesful architect in his generation, and María Muro O'Shea, daughter of king Alfonso XIII's private secretary.

At 22 years old, in 1966 Marta married Javier Guardiola Domínguez, an entrepreneur from a large land-owning family and had 3 children - Javier (1967-2006), Ena (1968-) and Felipe (1969-).

In 1975, at age 31, she moved to Madrid and enrolled in university studies in Art History, which she completed 5 years later. She immediately set to work organizing a few very significant traveling art exhibitions, most notably in 1985 one of paintings by Domenico Theotocopoulos, "El Greco de Toledo" at the Prado Museum and traveled to Toledo, Ohio, and Tokio, Japan.

After this great success, in 1986-87 she organized for Heinrich Thyssen an exhibition of the paintings by Goya in the Spanish private collections, which was exhibited at Villa Favorita in Lugano, with the attendance of the owners of the paintings, the highest Spanish Aristocracy.

In 1987, her friend the Marqués de Marchelina, asked her to come to Carmona, Seville, to become acquainted with his family's palace, for it was owned by the 13 brothers and sisters and they had decided to sell it, and she would perhaps know of someone interested. She went and found the buyer - herself.

From 1987 to 1991 she painstakingly rehabilitated the Palacio de los Lasso de la Vega in Carmona, Seville, and upon completion in 1991 she named it Casa Palacio de Carmona and opened it as a luxury hotel with 30 bedrooms, to a widely published international acclaim. This rehabilitation became her magnum opus and she witnessed a resounding and lasting fame.

In 1998, she decided to sell the Casa Palacio de Carmona to her son Felipe, who had been running it since 1994 and set herself to find a suitable apartment in Madrid to rehabilitate. She found the apartment at Arrieta for sale, which was in dire disrepair and had to be completely refurbished. To be able to purchase such large apartment - 530 m2, she was able to negotiate seller´s finance and the help of her friend Gerarda de Orleans-Borbon, who guaranteed a loan for the cash payment.

She immediately set to refurbishing it from floor to ceiling, introducing 8 further bathrooms, and decorating each room with a particular national theme, from drawing notes she took in her travels.

In 2004 she named the flat "Casa de Madrid" and began welcoming guests. The travel, architecture, fashion and decorating press poured over the apartment and it appeared in many of the best publications across Europe. A guestbook full of refined and famous clientele ensued.

From this history we have excluded the unfortunate, the unpleasant, the tenacity and the grit, which have accompanied the successes in no lesser measure.

From 2022 it is now her son Felipe who welcomes guests.

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