Rental Revamp: A Designer Cuts a Deal With His Landlord to Give His Buenos Aires Place a Rustic Reno

With carte blanche, Marcos Altgelt aimed for rough-and-ready sophistication.

When Marcos Altgelt discovered a run-down property for rent on a sleepy Buenos Aires backstreet, he came up with a novel idea: to create his dream home without owning it. He negotiated to remodel the property if the landlord would agree to 10 years of affordable rent.

Marcos Altgelt, cofounder of Argentine design studio Ries and one of last year’s Dwell 24, renovated a 100-year-old “chorizo house” in Buenos Aires in exchange for a decade of reasonable rent. Chorizos—so called because their rooms are arranged in a row, like sausage links—feature long, greenery-filled courtyards with doors offering independent access to each room.

Photo: Federico Cairoli

Altgelt, cofounder of design studio Ries (and a Dwell 24 honoree last year), thought the property showed potential, given its generous lot sandwiched between two popular neighborhoods, but the house was in bad shape. Back in mid-2022, skyrocketing inflation crippled Argentina’s economy, creating an unpredictable future for tenants facing rent hikes. Yet materials and construction costs were affordable, so Marcos seized the moment.

Vintage Thonet chairs and a Canto table by Ries sit outside the home’s listening room and study.

Photo: Federico Cairoli

The house was a casa chorizo, a kind of home built in the Rio de la Plata region from the 1880s to 1930s to meet the demands of a population that was rapidly expanding because of European emigration, with a row of rooms independently accessible from an outdoor patio. Multiple families often lived together under one roof. These constructions are now highly sought after by those wanting to live in a house with outdoor space in an inner-city location. Plus, their sound construction, large rooms with exposed-brick vaulted ceilings, and decorative floors make them ripe for remodeling.

Marcos says that for his home, he wanted “to respect what was already there.… I didn’t want to impose on the existing architecture.” No limitations whatsoever were imposed by the landlord; Marcos had complete freedom to do as he liked.