to his orientalist phase, but the abundance of decorative artwork (ceramics, ironwork, glasswork, and woodwork) shows signs of what would be Gaudí’s golden age within Catalan Modernism. The work was carried out between 1883 and 1885. Gaudí personally managed the construction: according to the testimony of Joan Baptista Serra to George R. Collins in 1959, the architect sat under a parasol and supervised the build, occasionally knocking down what he considered to be poor workmanship. Throughout the project, Gaudí called on the help of various craftsmen who would regularly assist him in his work, such as the sculptor Llorenç Matamala, the carpenter Eudald Puntí and the blacksmith Joan Oñós, as well as Claudi Alsina, a contractor. The decoration was carried out by the painter Francesc Torrescassana and the sculptor Antoni Riba. The original site measured , with a surface area of 1035 m². The house had three facades, since on its northeast side there was a dividing wall shared with a neighbouring convent. Although the entrance was on the southeast side, facing Carrer Sant Gervasi, the main facade looked out onto the garden, on the southwest side, bordering the small street of Carreró Racó de Sant Gervasi, which was wide. The house, designed as a single-family home, had a wine cellar and basement for storage; a main floor with a foyer, dining room, porch, smoking room, kitchen and laundry room; a first floor with bedrooms, bathrooms, a dressing room and a library; an attic for staff accommodation; and a roof terrace with small walkways between the gables with chimneys and a pavilion in the northwest corner. It had a Catalan vaulted staircase with wooden wainscoting on each step, decorated with small oil paintings by Torrescassana, which were lost in the renovations of 1925. The architect planned a set of masonry walls for the house, alternated with rows of tiles. The tiles would feature yellow flowers typical of the area (Indian carnations or Tagetes erecta), which Gaudí had found on the site of the house before construction, and which he wanted to reproduce in the final project. He was also inspired by a palmetto tree he discovered on site, to design the cast iron gate at the main entrance in the shape of palm leaves (Chamaerops humilis). As Gaudí expressed, “When I went to take the measurements of the site, it was totally covered with some yellow flowers, which I used