Mallorca opens Graves' home as museum

The Spanish holiday island of Mallorca is to honour its most illustrious British expatriate resident, the novelist, poet and scholar Robert Graves.

The hilltop stone country home where the novelist lived on and off from 1931 until his death in 1985 will open as a museum tomorrow. During his self-imposed exile in the once bucolic town of Deya, he wrote many of his most famous works, including I, Claudius, The White Goddess and The Greek Myths.

But until now the only landmark in his honour was his modest grave site in a tiny churchyard, listed in most tourist guides.

"You'd be surprised how many people leave little notes on the grave, but everyone wanted to see the house where he lived," said his son, William, 65, who still lives on the island.

When the government of the Balearic Islands announced that it would spend €2.5m to turn the home into a museum the people of Deya were elated. They were eager to rival neighbouring Valldemossa, which has its own expatriate icon: Chopin. The pianist briefly rented a former monk's cell with his lover, the writer George Sand, in Valldemossa's monastery, which has since become a tourist attraction.

"They couldn't understand why Chopin has a monastery in Valldemossa when he was only there for a few months, while in Deya someone like Robert Graves only had a tomb," William said in a telephone interview.

William Graves oversaw the conversion of his childhood home into what he hopes will become a cultural pilgrimage site similar to the poet John Keats's house in Rome. He said it recreates the spirit of the house as it looked in the 1940s, when his father was most productive. Visitors can admire his office, the old printing press he used to publish poems and the amphitheatre where his children would perform plays. There is also a display of photos, books and the newspaper clipping that mistakenly announced his death in the first world war.

The whitewashed walls and simple decor contrasts with the upscale Deya of today. The village of 700 inhabitants is now a quaint outpost for holidaymakers with several boutique hotels. The bohemian crowd that once flocked there in Graves's wake is giving way to jetsetters. The actor Pierce Brosnan is building a house there, and The Corrs have made it their second home, according to El País. Andrew Lloyd Webber was spotted sipping tea there at one of the taverns.

When Graves lived there wheat grew on the property and his neighbours were rural folk with little interest in international headlines. His literary life was limited to letters and visits.

"There were no intellectuals here, but his relationship with the butcher and the carpenter were excellent," William Graves said.