Barcelona has this strange ability to hide palaces among the undergrowth. If you’ve ever driven up the Rabassada road, you’ve probably felt that nostalgic chill as you pass by the ruins of what was once the epicenter of vice, luxury, and Barcelona high society. Well, if you have a million-plus euros saved up and a desire to relive history, you’re in luck : the old Casino de la Rabassada is officially on the market.
The complex is on sale for €1.7 million, a figure that, considering the cost of rent in the Eixample district, seems almost anecdotal for anyone who wants to acquire more than 100,000 square meters of pure history in the heart of Collserola. The advertisement, recently published on real estate websites, offers the opportunity to acquire a space that, although today it looks like the setting for a gothic horror film, was once the private “Las Vegas” of the Catalan bourgeoisie.
From the glory of the Belle Époque to the oblivion of war
To understand what we are buying (or what we are missing out on), we have to travel back to 1911. Imagine the scene: 300 guests in formal attire inaugurating a casino that cost a whopping 2.5 million pesetas at the time. It had everything: a luxury hotel with paintings by Lechevallier Chevignard, a French restaurant, and even an amusement park with a roller coaster that, according to the chronicles of the time, was the envy of Europe.
However, fate was cruel to this palace of excess. The ban on gambling in 1929, under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, was the first blow. Then came the Civil War, during which the building served as an air-raid shelter and makeshift barracks, only to be almost completely demolished in 1940. Since then, nature has reclaimed what is hers, leaving behind a trail of moss-covered staircases and rooms that are a paradise for urban explorers.
A future between art workshops and nature
Despite its current state, the estate is not just a pile of stones with a view. It is a building listed in the Collserola Park farmhouse register, which means that you cannot build a block of tourist apartments there (fortunately). According to the real estate agency Soler Finques, the permitted uses for the main building that remains standing are geared towards craft, artistic, or research activities.
In other words, the future of the Casino de la Rabassada could be as an enviable recording studio, a sculpture workshop, or a technology development center surrounded by pine trees. In addition, the lot includes something priceless: the exclusive rights to the name “Casino de la Rabassada” for cultural and recreational activities.
While we wait to see who dares to take on this sleeping giant, we can always take a stroll around it and imagine, among the dry fountains and peeling walls, the echo of laughter and the clinking of chips from a Barcelona that now only exists in history books.
