When San Franciscans Victor Carrasco and Elizabeth McMillan bought their dream home in 1978, an abandoned courtyard house in a small Andalusian village in Southern Spain, they had little idea of the adventure ahead of them, beyond the immediate task of restoring an old building in poor condition. In addition to lacking modern amenities like plumbing and electricity, the fifteenth century Casa Alta featured a partly caved-in roof, a cracked facade, and a collapsed central arcade. What attracted the intrepid couple was not the structural mayhem facing them, but the spaces the three-foot thick whitewashed walls enclosed, including two large courtyards, panoramic views of the landscape, and the ineffable history of a house that dates back to Roman times.
