Our history

Built in 2020, the Whaler's Houses build the name of a historic past in the village of Caniçal. The Alves family, always linked to the sea and its customs, had long aspired to create some kind of tourist infrastructure that would help to promote the small village of Caniçal on Madeira island and in the world. A few years ago the possibility arose to rehabilitate an existing building in the center of the village, and this opportunity was very well received and seized. The family focused on the project and Whaler's Houses emerged from a whole family effort, from the building, to the brand and the completion of it. The name Whaler's Houses came about after periods of reflection on how it could be impactful and at the same time representative of the history of the local community, in addition to the fact that both the previous family who owned the building and the current owners had a past of family members who were whalers. In this way, the name of something that was so lived, that is so rooted in the culture of the entire village of Caniçal, and of something that is still remembered by many of the old whalers of the village to the building they rehabilitated, was given to the houses. The logo is another part of our project, executed by a family member who, in order to make the same striking and recognizable, the old photograph was artistically simplified creating an image that symbolically translates the history of the family and the village. At Whaler's Houses you will find small references to the history of the whaling industry since the existing pieces and photographs are conservation articles and, therefore, you will only find them in a museum for this purpose. Still, throughout the houses some decoration was left alluding to the sea and fishing.