Stupas in an old mansion
A Buddhist monastery with stupas in an old mansion with its Catholic chapel intact. Just for that contrast—harmonious even if it doesn’t seem so—it is worth visiting the spiritual home of the Sakya Tashi Ling community, which is open to visitors from Wednesday to Sunday, and also on public holidays. The Garraf Buddhist monastery is located in the Palau Novella , an estate that originally spanned 500 hectares and was owned by Pere Domènech Grao , one of the famous ‘americanos’ of Sitges who made their fortune in Cuba . The mansion or main house was designed by the architect Manuel Comas and was inaugurated in 1890. Built in a pretentious style, typical of a megalomaniac, with some walls lined with elephant skin, the house and its owner’s success were short-lived: in 1893, the phylloxera plague wiped out his vineyards, which, combined with poor stock market investments, led Domènech to ruin. Nearly a hundred years later, in 1994, the master Jamyang Tashi Dorje Rinpoché , a native of Barcelona, bought the Palau Novella to become the spiritual home of the Sakya Tashi Ling community, respecting the cultural heritage of the building and its surroundings.
Stupa of Health and Long Life
Therefore, do not imagine a Buddhist monastery with Nepalese or Tibetan architecture. What you will find is a palace in Modernist and Neo-Gothic style, with its original materials and much of its original furniture, which coexist, of course, with Buddha figures, photos of the Dalai Lama or sand mandalas in glass display cases, among other elements. Beside the mansion, the estate’s chapel remains intact and can also be visited. In fact, the iconic power of the Buddhist monastery is found outside, in the Stupa of Health and Long Life. In the interior courtyard, next to the restaurant, stands another, smaller stupa, the Stupa of Wisdom.
