Villa Winter

28°06′07″N 14°22′30″W / 28.10194°N 14.37500°W / 28.10194; -14.37500

Villa Winter (Spanish: Casa de los Winter) is a villa situated in a remote location of the southwestern part of the island of Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, near the village of Cofete on the Jandía peninsula. The villa was designed and built by Gustav Winter, a reclusive German engineer born in 1893 in the Black Forest region of Germany. The villa has two floors and a basement, a balcony in the front, and a tower in the northestern corner, with a 360-degree view.

History

Gustav Winter worked since 1915 for Spain and was active in different projects in Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria, includoing building an airstrip. The villa is built in a remote part of the island overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, with only a dirt track leading to it. According to local residents, the villa was built in 1937, but the Spanish authorities claim it was built in 1946, and Winter claimed that it was built in 1958. Purported to have been built for farming, local residents claim variously that the Spanish Army built it, that forced labor from a nearby prison camp was used in its construction, and that the site was heavily guarded during construction.

The villa is the subject of several conspiracy theories, often involving Nazis. The main conspiracy theories surround the fact that the villa had a tower turret with an electric lantern installed, similar to a lighthouse, and that villa was being used to signal German U-boats. The tower has a large fuse box installed on the wall.

Villa Winter is featured on an episode of Secret Nazi Bases, a TV documentary on UK channel Yesterday, also cablecast on the American Heroes Channel in the United States, where tunnels and rooms in the basement under the house, some built with walls 1.4 metres (4 ft 7 in) thick, and with arched ceilings, said to be effective at resisting explosions, are explored. When interviewed in this TV documentary the current resident and caretaker, Pedro Fumero, claims to have played in the basement as a child, and saw shackles there in a windowless room just wide enough for a person's arms to be affixed to opposite walls. He says that he has investigated 1.3 metres (4 ft 3 in) below the house, but is forbidden by local authorities to excavate suspected hidden cavities. It is claimed that the remnants of a air strip similar to the one built by Winter elsewhere on the island can be seen from above in front of the house.