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Bare stone facade of the La Veiga house, with Tía Pepa and Adelina looking out of the windows and cloths hung out for Corpus Christi
Villablino · Laciana · since 1950

The house built
stone by stone, peseta by peseta.

La Veiga was the name of the area of fields — maize and other crops — bordering the village of San Miguel. The particular spot where the house was built was known as "El Zarzalón". Today it is all part of Villablino, though it keeps its own identity.

Scan · read · stop by again sometime

This was the first house of La Veiga — and, without exaggeration, one of the first buildings of modern Villablino: it was built even before the village church. Stone by stone, peseta by peseta, it was raised by a family of miners.

In its early years, the house was known and used as a reference point under the name La Veiga — even the post was addressed that way. That name is barely remembered now; today, if anyone names it, it's as Enriquitín's house.

The house's ledger

The house, through time

A chronological journey through the photographs that survive of the house and the people who lived in it.

1950s
House still in bare, unplastered stone, with Tía Pepa and Adelina looking out of the windows and cloths hung for Corpus Christi
Facade still in bare stone, unplastered · Tía Pepa (left) and her sister Adelina (right), looking out of the window

Corpus Christi day

This photograph captures a custom that has almost disappeared today: on Corpus Christi day, houses in the village were dressed up with the family's finest bedspreads, shawls and damask cloths hung from windows and balconies — often pieces from a bridal trousseau — to adorn the procession route.

The Corpus Christi custom This was no ordinary decoration: bringing out the finest linens and bedcovers was also a way of showing off the house and taking part in a feast that wound through the whole village. In an era when the facade was still bare stone, those colourful cloths were, for one day, the house's best face.
1958
Panoramic view of La Veiga in 1958, with Villablino's newly built church and almost nothing else around it
La Veiga in 1958, with Villablino's church newly built — on land belonging to San Miguel. Nothing else existed yet

When there was nothing around it yet

This 1958 panoramic view shows the valley when Villablino's church had been standing for only a few years. The La Veiga house, built in 1950, was already there before much of what is now the centre of the village.

c. 1958–60
Elderly man wearing a beret, sitting at the door of a stone house
Enriquitín, at the front door

Enriquitín, retired from the mine

With his lungs marked by silicosis, Enrique — "Enriquitín" — born in Busante (Ibias, Asturias), spent his last years on the very doorstep he had built with his own hands, already past seventy.

1960s
Elderly woman sitting beneath a tree, with her hands crossed
Adelina

Adelina, holding up the household economy

While the mortgage and the neighbours' loans were being paid off, Adelina held up the family economy by renting out the two ground-floor dwellings.

c. 1963
Studio portrait of a man
Paulino, around age 38

Paulino, a miner like his father

Born in San Miguel, where the family lived before building the house. Unmarried and barely into his twenties, he helped raise the house stone by stone alongside his father. By the time this photograph was taken he was already married to Edelmira, with whom he raised his children here, and he kept supporting the house with his miner's wage, year after year.

~20 years ago
The house, now plastered and rendered, covered in snow, surrounded by modern buildings
The house, now established, under snow, among the buildings that grew up around it

The house, established

Now plastered and rendered, the house stands surrounded by the Villablino that grew up after it — the same blocks and buildings that today share the street with the last original building of La Veiga.

2025
The house today, repainted white after the 2020 renovation, seen from the garden
The house today, after the 2020 renovation and repainted in 2025 (provisional photo — to be replaced with one showing more of the facade)

The house, today

Seventy-odd years after that 1950 build, the house is still standing, still in the family, and still has something to tell.

The family who built the house

Enriquitín, Adelina, Paulino and Edelmira

1878
—
1960

Enrique · "Enriquitín"

Born in Busante (Ibias, Asturias), he went down into the Laciana mines like so many second sons of mountain farmsteads. Retired from the mine, his lungs marked by silicosis, he built this house with his own hands well past his seventies, together with his son Paulino.

1893
—
1968

Adelina

From Folgoso de Ibias. Enrique's companion in the house and in its debt: she held up the family economy by renting out the two ground-floor dwellings while the mortgage and the loans were being paid off.

1925
—
2009

Paulino

Born in San Miguel, where the family lived before building the house. Son of Enrique and Adelina, a miner like his father. Unmarried and barely into his twenties, he helped raise this house stone by stone alongside him, while two of his brothers left for Brazil. He went on supporting it with his wages, year after year — before and after marrying Edelmira, with whom he raised his children here.

Dates
pending

Edelmira

On marrying Paulino she became a key figure in the house: she managed it and renovated it in the 1970s, cared for her mother-in-law — Tía Pepa — and raised her two children here. (a photograph of her is still to be added)

“Every stone of this house was paid for with mine shifts and sacrifice. Let whoever visits know it.”
The family of La Veiga · Villablino
La Veiga, Villablino · Family history recorded in León, 2026