Velintonia, the historic house of the poet Vicente Aleixandre goes up to public auction without saving his memory

After the death of the poet Vicente Aleixandre, everything has been trouble around your house, Velintonia 3. The house of the renowned poet of the generation of 27 has passed from hand to hand among his relatives, who have come into conflict on different occasions, both with each other and with the institutions. There have been several times in which attempts have been made to declare the domicile of Aleixandre Bien de Interés Cultural (BIC), without success.

Today Velintonia is 60 percent owned by Amaya Aleixandre from Artiñano, the daughter of a cousin of the poet, and the rest to four cousins ​​of the Merlo family, who have 10 percent each.

The latest information about the house of the Nobel Prize, by the ruling of the Court of First Instance No. 35 of Madrid, reveals that the current owners are not able to agree on what to do with the property. And it seems that the reason for leaving Aleixandre’s home is its high price, something in which the co-owners have disagreed. The house of the Spanish poet will go up to public auction soon.

Negotiations doomed to failure

Despite various attempts by the Ministry of Culture, the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council to acquire the property, an agreement was never reached between the parties. As told Carmen Calvo, former Minister of Culture, Aleixandre’s heirs asked for more than six and a half million euros for the house, while their offer was 1.95 million euros. The ministry withdrew from the negotiations in May 2007 after a second offer of 2.8 million that, again, the owners of the property rejected.

Too there has been talk of the expropriation of the house, both on the part of Carmen Calvo and the Government of Manuela Carmena in Madrid. However, it was not until 2020 when Three of the five co-owners of the property began the procedures to extinguish the property’s condominium and its subsequent sale at a public judicial auction. In April 2021, the Court of First Instance No. 35 ordered the public auction of Velintonia.

Insufficient protection

The Community of Madrid began in July 2021 the preparation of the file for declare the house of Vicente Aleixandre a Property of Patrimonial Interest (BIP). The level of protection that is granted, then, to the property, is the second most important of those provided for in Law 3/2013 on Historical Heritage of the Community of Madrid, and is reserved for those cultural property that is considered to have a special historical or artistic significance, but not exceptional.

The Friends of Vicente Aleixandre Association, for his part, has been fighting since 1995 with the aim of saving the poet’s house, which is in a state close to abandonment, and transform it into the House of Poetry, “A space dedicated to the memory of Vicente Aleixandre, of the generation of 27 and of all the Spanish poetry of the twentieth century”, according to what they themselves tell on their website.

This association has expressed its disagreement with BIP’s assessment on different occasions of Aleixandre’s house, claiming that many of the houses of the most important writers in Spain have been converted into a house-museum, and that the regulations control any action that takes place in the place, something that does not happen with the protection granted the consideration of BIP.