History of the Building

The Original Building

In a rural village, adjacent to an open field, a patch of limestone was dug to provide the building blocks of what became a few rooms to house the livestock. Throughout the centuries this same building together with it’s surrounding experienced a  transformation to become the core of the village of Siggiewi.

That open field that was the playground to our forefathers as children had a stone statue of the much beloved patron saint erected just in the middle. This statue of Saint Nicholas was supposed to look uphill, towards the newly built Baroque church but legend tells us how the statue turned around overnight as it laid hanging for it to be lowered in place the following morning.

The small cluster of rooms, stood there through time, humbly serving it’s purpose but with a new dwelling built in the 70’s to host the family of Salvatore and Agnes Schembri.

Building Pjazza Suites

The current owners started works in 2017 to convert these two distinct buildings into an exclusive 5-suite Boutique Hotel. The challenge was to retain as much character and architectural heritage as possible to showcase the origins of the house whilst offering guests a comfortable accommodation.

Whilst the most recent part of the house, that built in the 70’s was completely demolished, the older rooms and the underlying water cistern were carefully dismantled, numbered and stored to be re-used in the new structure.

  • Limestone slabs (xorok) removed from old building to be reused
  • Hand-carved Arches removed from old building to be rebuilt in Suite 1
  • Reception with limestone slabs (xorok) for ceiling
  • Outdoor Spa being lifted in Suite 5
  • The view of St. John’s Chapel from Suite 5
  • Dry-wall perimeter being cleaned & pointed in the yard of Suite 2
  • Protruding Corbels (Kileb) now add a link to history in Suite 4
  • Restored wall being restored in Suite 2

The owners wanted to remain true to the original layout of the farm, built on just 2 levels, surrounding an open courtyard and accessible through a central, open-air staircase. Today, Pjazza Suites Boutique Hotel proudly features in it’s suites a number of artefacts in limestone of an architectural importance, amongst which;

  • A pair of Arches spanning over 3 metres, cut and curved by hand;
  • This Slabs of limestone known in Maltese as xorok that used to span over arches to form ceilings;
  • Protruding Corbels known in Maltese as kileb that used to support the xorok at the extremities of the room;
  • Limestone walls/rubble walls at the perimeter of the property showing the different cutting techniques and sizes of slabs through time;
  • Remains of the quarry-like diggings on-site from where the material for building the original structure was obtained.