Looking for some Spanish sun? An Andalucian townhouse renovated by Alan Carr and Amanda Holden in the third season of their renovation series is available to rent, with prices starting at €195 (£170) per night.
The house featured on Amanda & Alan’s Spanish Job, which aired on BBC One in January this year. Located in the mountaintop village of Moclín, near Granada, the crumbling property was purchased for €65,000 and given a new lease of life by the duo and their patient project manager, Scott Thompson.
“This is a lot of work, you know,” says Carr on their first visit to the house, gazing up at an enormous hole in the roof.
“We do have an issue with the roof,” Holden agrees. “It’s like when you first meet someone, you don’t see any flaws in them at all. It’s the same with the house. You go in like: ‘Oh my god, this is amazing, I love this,’ and then gradually it becomes a nightmare.”
Before it came into Carr and Holden’s hands, the three-storey property was a family house and local shop that had been empty for 35 years and fallen into disrepair. Despite the building’s grandeur, parts of the roof had collapsed, there were piles of rubble on the ground, and it still contained the remnants of a previous occupant’s life – including what they’d left in the toilet.
“It’s weird, because a lot of décor and the furniture is dated, yet the turd was fresh,” says Carr.
Unlike previous series, the townhouse —called Casa Alamanda Moclín— was built with the intention of becoming a B&B. “Andalucia is known now for suffering from depopulation, and Moclín is on of those villages,” Holden explains.
“It used to have a lot of generational living, but now, sadly, those generations have passed away and the young people have had to go and seek work in cities to make and support their families. Hopefully, me and Alan will be able to bring that pizzazz and some energy back in.”
Dressed in hard hats and matching boilersuits —embroidered with their initials— the pair are filmed smashing down walls, shopping for tools and picking out patterned tiles for their kitchen island.
Miraculously, over the course of a single summer, the building is transformed.
Today, Casa Alamanda Moclín is a smart building with a fresh white façade, three double bedrooms, two patios and a sunny courtyard garden.
Carr and Holden reconfigured the layout, knocking down a wall in the entrance to form a dining room and foyer, and opening the kitchen at the back of the house to bring in natural light.
They added an extra bedroom to the second floor by removing a bathroom, with an “Ibiza cool” bedroom suite on the top floor, along with a games room.
The master bedroom, which draws on Granada’s Alhambra Palace, is now called “The Moroccan Bedroom”, with a hand-crafted decorative plaster ceiling and carved arches framing the bed.
Carr and Holden have decorated the room with Moroccan style hanging glass lanterns, pierced metal wall sconces and linen drapes to add to the effect, while on the other side of the room, through a wide arch, they have created a sitting room.
“When it’s in its early stages you feel that it’s very elaborate for a little house in a village square,” says Holden in the programme, admiring the room.
“But now it feels like it could have always been here. It’s the drama for me, and the campness.”
In the kitchen, Carr and Holden have gone heavy on the tiles: there’s a green, parquet tiled feature wall, and a kitchen island topped with a white top and a patterned border. There’s a separate dining room with a table made from a salvaged wooden door.
“I’m really pleased,” says Carr when the house is complete. “What I love about the house is that you can see how Spain has really got under our skin. We’ve got rustic elements, we’ve got Moorish elements, we’ve got that gorgeous ceiling inspired by the Alhambra. We’ve got tiles.”
The finished house was listed for sale for €245,000 in March this year, and sold to Nicola and Mickey Walters, who live in Wales.
“We watched the series and fell in love with the house and the area,” says Nicola.
“Like most that saw the show, Mickey and I decided it would be on our bucket list to stay there and explore Granada. When we Googled whether we could stay there, we came across the listing to buy it outright. So we put in an enquiry without thinking much of it.
“Cut to today, we never imagined we would be the lucky owners after going to view the property.”
Casa Alamanda Moclín is now available to book from €195 per night in the low season (€225 in the high season), with 15 per cent of all rental income to go to Moclín’s Women’s Association.
The property is managed by Granada Village & Country estate agency and Granada Cultural Holidays, who sold the property before and after restoration.
“When we were approached by the show’s producers, we immediately recognised an opportunity to breathe new life into Moclín,” said Ian Rutter, one of the founders of Granada Village & Country.
“It was months of hard work with many obstacles to navigate, but the impact it’s had on the village is more than worth it.
“Post-airing in January 2025, sightseers were visiting the village daily to take photographs outside the ‘as seen on the BBC’ property, and we know local businesses have experienced an uplift, including our own.
“One year on from filming, pride and optimism has returned to the village, and now that Casa Alamanda Moclín is available for holidaymakers to stay, it’s a wonderful full-circle moment for the villagers who’ve seen it through the full transformation. Visitors will be given a very warm welcome to this beautiful rural village.”
