Amber Heard’s new neighborhood in Madrid. What to know about ‘El Viso’

Amber Heard fled Hollywood after her controversial defamation trial which saw her get the short end of the jury’s verdict and headed to Europe. She originally settled in small town on the island of Majorca with her two-year-old daughter Oonagh Paige. However, her presence caused quite a stir in the area, even though she tried going by a pseudonym, so she sought some place where she could go unnoticed.

While it might be a metropolis of over 3 million people, Madrid is quite a good place for that. Especially if you are already surrounded by the crème de la crème of society. At least those are her new neighbors in El Viso, a part of the city northeast of the old center but still a stone’s throw from just about everything but seen as an oasis in the urban sprawl.

Heard no longer has to go by ‘Martha Jane Cannary’ and has reportedly bought a four-story house in the residential neighborhood which is located on the highest point in the city. The privileged elevation allowed residents to have a view of the Sierra de Guadarrama to the northwest of the city which is where it derives its name. However, that ‘vista’ has been lost over the years as Madrid has grown outward and upward.

What to know about ‘El Viso’

Heard’s new neighborhood was begun in 1933 as ‘Colonia El Viso’ under 1925 legislation, during the Second Republic in Spain, to build affordable housing for workers and civil servants. The Colonia was fashioned after the then-new twentieth century urbanization style known as “the Garden City.” It mainly consists of single-family detached houses with two to four stories with a garden patio area surrounded by low walls to separate the properties and avoid prying eyes from the street.

The neighborhood, however, never saw the kinds of residents it was theoretically intended for, mainly due to its location, as well as the design and quality of the development and its buildings. Instead, El Viso was inhabited from the beginning by upper-middle class professionals and intellectuals. Nowadays, it is one of the most prestigious and sought-after residential neighborhoods in Madrid with the highest per capita income in Spain.

Its residents are some of the biggest names in Spanish and international society including celebrities, business titans, politicians and aristocrats. Only the wealthiest can afford to live in what is known as the “Gold Triangle.”

Heard’s five-bedroom house set her back 1.5 million euros, a little north of $1.6 million at the current exchange rate, according to Vanitas. After a quick look through Idealista, a Spanish website for house hunting, it looks like she got a good deal.