THE ENCHANTED HOUSE IN EL SALVADOR

Imagine you saw your future house in a dream. Not only that – imagine you saw your future house in a dream and decided to build it. This is exactly what Maria Ponce, an elderly lady living near Usulután, El Salvador, did in 2005.

The Enchanted House (La Casita Encantada) is a small scrap house on the Carretera del Litoral road in El Salvador. Yet, it is very different from its neighbors. Both its interior and exterior are made of plastic bottles and its floor and patio of beer caps stuck in concrete. The green bottles on the outside of the house are decorated with white polka dots the size of Maria’s thumb – which is exactly what they have been made with. Inside the bottles are white with red polka dots and green stripes. All over the house there are flower decorations, also made out of plastic bottles. On one of the walls there is even a lettering from Maria’s dream – even though the owner of the house herself does not know what it reads as she is illiterate.

All in all, from collecting the bottles, putting them on the walls and painting the whole house, it took Maria three months to finish the house. She received no help from the other villagers, who, in fact, thought she had completely lost her mind when starting her strange endeavor. Yet, the Enchanted House is no doubt one of the most unique and creative houses of Central America and Maria Ponce would have been crazy only had she not built it.