The ghost of the House of the Seven Fireplaces

The legend of the ghost of The House of Seven Fireplaces (Casa de las Siete Chimeneas) is located in the Chueca district in calle Infanta 31, easy to recognize for the seven chimneys that decorate the roof and for the columns in front of its facade.

The legend of the ghost of the House of the seven fireplaces tells …

…. that the house was built for the daughter of a gamekeeper of Philip II, the king’s lover. The girl, whose name was Elena, was extraordinarily beautiful, so much so that Philip II had fallen in love with her since he was a young prince. Not being noble, Elena could not marry a member of the royal family, so she married a captain of the king’s army named Zapata. Soon, however, Zapata was sent to fight in Flanders alongside the French troops and died, leaving the young widow in the most gloomy sadness: Elena stopped eating and sleeping, and began to slowly wear out in body and soul to the point of letting herself die.

The misterious daughter

Before she died, however, Elena had given birth to a girl who was never known about. The matter became complicated when the servants of the house claimed that Elena had not died of a broken heart but had been murdered and that they themselves had found her body pierced by numerous stabs. Thus began to circulate rumors that the death of Elena was wanted by Philip II, king and lover of the young woman, who wanted to keep the birth of his illegitimate daughter hidden. Elena’s father was formally accused of the crime, and his body was soon found hanged in the same house. The authorities then ordered to investigate further into the mysterious deaths of father and daughter, but Elena’s corpse had suddenly disappeared, perhaps walled up in the walls of the Casa de las Siete Chimeneas or buried in the garden that surrounded the house at the time.

The story was gradually forgotten and no longer talked about, until many years later a man said he saw a figure of a woman walking on the roof of the house: she was dressed in white, with one hand holding a torch and with the other pointed towards the Alcazar, the residence of King Philip II. Other people in the following months confirmed the vision of the man and rumors began to spread about a ghost in the House of the seven fireplaces, maybe the ghost of Elena demanding justice and accusing her killer, the king, from the roof of her house.

A dead woman body with gold

Over the centuries the house passed into the hands of different owners until, at the end of the 19th century, the Banco di Castiglia moved its headquarters there and during the renovation works the body of a woman was found buried along with some golden coins by the time of Philip II.