Three House Hotel

A Fifty-Year-Old Building, Reinvented as a Rooftop Retreat

In Santa Maria, Funchal's old fishermen's quarter, a building that has stood for more than fifty years has been reworked into Three House Hotel, an apartment-style address built around privacy, light and a rooftop that looks out over the city, the harbour and the hills behind it. The rooms favour space over formality: proper living areas, natural light, and the sense of a short-term home rather than a hotel corridor. It is a different proposition from Funchal's clifftop resorts, closer in spirit to a well-run guesthouse with a hotel's amenities layered on top, cocktail bar, pool and restaurant included.

Why It Works

The rooftop does most of the work: a pool and cocktail bar with 360-degree views, open for sunset drinks or a swim before dinner. Underneath it, the hotel's own restaurant is led by chef Maurício Faria, who builds his menu around Madeira's market produce rather than a generic hotel buffet. Pets are welcome, unusual among Funchal's hotels and a genuine point of difference for travellers who would otherwise board an animal at home. A 9.70 out of 10 score across 465 reviews, and a quality check clearing twelve of thirteen categories, confirm the atmosphere holds up in practice.

Why This Location

Santa Maria is Funchal's oldest neighbourhood, a tight grid of painted doors and small restaurants a short walk from the fish market and the marina, and close enough to the cathedral and the main shopping streets to reach on foot. It trades the sweeping grounds of a clifftop estate for proximity: guests step out into the old town rather than a garden. The quarter is busier and more local than a resort strip, with evening life on the street itself, which suits a traveller who wants to be inside the city rather than looking down on it from a hillside.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium

• Vibe: boutique, rooftop, old-town local

• Rooms: 13, apartment-style layouts

• Best For: couples and pet owners who want to stay inside Funchal's old town

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the 360-degree rooftop pool and bar over a fifty-year-old building

• Dining: in-house restaurant led by chef Maurício Faria, Madeiran market produce

• Amenities: rooftop pool, cocktail bar, pet-friendly rooms, cycling and bike tours

• Attractions: Santa Maria old town, Funchal fish market, the marina, the cathedral

Rooftop, Restaurant and the Chef Behind the Plates

The rooftop is the hotel's clearest signature: a pool ringed by loungers, a cocktail bar built for the sunset crowd, and a 360-degree view that takes in the harbour on one side and the hills on the other. Downstairs, the kitchen answers to chef Maurício Faria, whose cooking leans on what the market in Funchal has that morning rather than a fixed international menu, a choice that reads as confidence rather than convenience. Guests can eat on the hotel's own schedule, breakfast, lunch or a late dinner, instead of working around a single sitting, which matters on an island where the best tables fill up early.

Apartment-Style Rooms With Room to Breathe

Where many Funchal hotels pack guests into standard doubles, Three House's thirteen rooms read closer to short-stay apartments: more floor space, proper seating areas, and the kind of layout that suits a week rather than a single night. That space is also what makes the pet policy workable in practice, rather than a line item that only applies to the smallest dog. Families travelling with children are welcomed on the same terms, and the quarter outside the door, café-lined and walkable, gives both groups somewhere to go without needing a car. It is a practical trade worth weighing against a hillside quinta: less garden, more city on tap, and a kitchen and rooftop that are genuinely the hotel's own rather than an afterthought.