LagOmar, the house cut into a quarry: the real story behind the Omar Sharif legend

In Nazaret, in the municipality of Teguise, there is a house that does not sit on the rock: it sits inside it. LagOmar occupies an old stone quarry, and the route threads through caves, cut tunnels, natural terraces and gardens that open suddenly around a bend. There is no façade: there is a wall of rock, and you walk through it.

Who made it

The idea bears César Manrique's mark; the man who built it was Jesús Soto, who physically made much of what is now credited to Manrique — the Jameos, the Casa-Museo, the Mirador. It is the same method you recognise all over the island: do not correct the ground, inhabit it as it is.

The house was born in the 1970s for a prosaic reason: a British developer, Sam Benady, wanted it as a show home to sell plots in the Oasis de Nazaret. It was meant to demonstrate what could be done with that stone. It succeeded beyond its brief.

The legend, and what is actually known

LagOmar is known as Omar Sharif's house. The story every guidebook repeats goes like this: the actor was in Lanzarote filming The Mysterious Island, saw the house, fell for it and bought it; then Benady — knowing his fondness for cards — challenged him to bridge and won it back, Sharif unaware that he was facing a European champion of the game.

It is a good story and worth telling. But the rest deserves saying too: it is an anecdote that has never been documented. What is certain is that Sharif was on the island for that film and that he knew the house. The rest — the purchase, the game, the loss in one evening — belongs to the way islands tell themselves. Knowing it is legend takes nothing from the visit; if anything it explains why the place carries that name.

What is there now

LagOmar has been open to the public since 1997. Inside there is a museum, an art gallery, a bar and a restaurant: you can see it as you would a monument, or stop for a drink at the end of a tunnel and let the hurry go.

Visiting

Open daily from 10am to 6pm. General admission covers everything: house, gardens, terraces, tunnels and viewpoint. There is also a guided visit and an option that opens before public hours, in groups of no more than ten — meant for anyone who wants to see it in silence, and the only way to have it almost to yourself.

Nazaret is a few minutes from Teguise and Tahíche. Comfortable shoes genuinely matter: you climb, you descend, you pass under rock.