Lorca’s family home in Gran Vía

The García Lorca family unexpectedly left the house at Acera del Darro, 50 in 1916 and moved temporarily to the apartment at Gran Vía, 34, located opposite Santa Paula street. There they resided for only one year.

The abandonment of the extensive rented house on the banks of the Darro where they arrived in 1908 from the Vega, where Isabel García Lorca was born and the other siblings spent part of their childhood and adolescence, was not voluntary. There were several circumstances that forced the painful move.

In 1917, the Lorca family moved into an apartment located in one of the best streets in Granada, but which left little mark on the lives of its tenants.

On the one hand, the owner put an end to the lease and announced his intention to put it up for sale, but Vicenta Lorca objected to buying it and adding it to the family estate. The place of childhood dazzlement and unforgettable games, of altars and jokes with the maids, of the dovecote and the high rooms, of the first verses and the continuous visits of relatives arriving from the Vega in search of shelter or advice, did not end up convincing her. Vicenta Lorca complained about the work involved in maintaining the garden and wanted a home with fewer demands.

So they decided to rent a more conventional apartment, although the experience only lasted a year and for many of the tenants, especially for the youngest, Isabel, it was an unforgettable blow: “For me it was very painful to return from the country and find myself without a patio, without a garden, without a dovecote, without a laundry room, without the jars, without everything that had filled my wonderful childhood. The kitchen had no chimney, nor the large overhanging grill that overlooked the garden, where I had spent so many delightful moments contemplating it”, she writes in her memoirs.

So when she returned from her summer vacation in Valderrubio in 1917, the family moved into an apartment located in one of the best streets of the city, but which hardly left any mark on the lives of its tenants.