This palace house on Zaragoza street is known as Casa de Santa Teresa because the first foundation of the Discalced Carmelites in the city was established there, by the hand of six nuns who accompanied Saint Teresa herself to Seville. Her brother, Lorenzo de Cepeda, bought the house for them in 1576 and a letter from Saint Teresa to the clergyman García Álvarez has been preserved in which he describes it with great praise:
'The lieutenant says that there is no better house in Seville or better position. It seems to me that the heat should not be felt in it. Now they are all in the patio, where mass is said in a room until the church is done, and they see the whole house, that in the innermost patio there are good rooms. The orchard is very graceful, the views extreme'.
The Carmelites would stay there for about ten years until they moved to a new convent in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the convent of San José or de las Teresas, which is still active as a Carmelite convent today.
The original house underwent important modifications in 1882, when it underwent a profound reform to adapt it to the prevailing taste of the time. In 1924 it was bought by Armando de Soto, who wanted to return it as far as possible to its original appearance from the 16th century, the time when it was inhabited by Saint Teresa. The reform was entrusted to the great architect of Sevillian regionalism, Vicente Traver, who restored the façade to its original appearance based on a drawing that Cardinal Lluch, Archbishop of Seville, had done before the 1882 reform. The architect also recovered the interior all the elements he could from the original house.
Inside, the traditional scheme of the Sevillian palace house is reproduced, with a hallway after the entrance through which you can access a porticoed patio around which the house is distributed. The access staircase to the upper floors is located in one of the corners of the patio, also following the tradition of Sevillian houses.