Inside Carlos Alcaraz’s House: The 90m² Wooden Cabin

Let me paint you a picture.

A 23-year-old wins multiple Grand Slams. He completes the Career Grand Slam — the youngest man in history to do it. He’s the top-ranked Spaniard in tennis. The prize money alone has crossed $65 million, and the endorsements pile on top of that.

So where does he live?

You’d probably picture a sprawling villa. Maybe a sleek penthouse in Monaco. A mansion with an infinity pool overlooking the Mediterranean.

Here’s what Carlos Alcaraz actually chose: a 90-square-meter prefabricated wooden cabin inside a tennis academy in the dry hills of Alicante. No pool. No marble floors. No wing dedicated to his trophy collection.

His major trophies? They sit in the living room of his family’s apartment in El Palmar, a small village outside Murcia — the place he officially calls home.

And honestly? The gap between what he could afford and what he actually lives in tells you more about who he really is than any luxury estate ever could.

Quick Facts

Inside the 90 Square Meters

Alcaraz keeps the interior of his cabin private, which is fair enough. The guy deserves one space the cameras don’t get to poke around in. But what we do know about the house itself — and how he ended up there — is a story worth telling.

He didn’t start here. When Alcaraz first arrived at the academy in 2019 as a 16-year-old, he stayed in one of the smaller prefabricated units on the grounds — about 25 square meters, essentially a bedroom with a bathroom and a small terrace. These compact wooden rooms house younger players at the academy, and for a teenager just entering the professional circuit, it was enough.

He stayed in that small unit through the COVID-19 pandemic, including the strict lockdown period in Spain. It was tight, but it worked.

Then his ranking climbed. After breaking into the top 100, the academy moved him into a larger 90 square meter wooden cabin — a significant step up, and one that came with a piece of history.

This cabin was originally built for Juan Carlos Ferrero. Back in 2003, when Ferrero was world number one and fresh off his French Open title, he needed a proper living space at the academy — something beyond the basic rooms where younger players stayed. So this cabin was constructed for him. Two bathrooms, a living room that opens into a kitchen, and a guest room. Comfortable, not extravagant.

After Ferrero retired and built a larger family home on another part of the academy grounds, the cabin didn’t sit empty. Guillermo García-López lived there. Nicolás Almagro lived there. Pablo Carreño stayed there during his training periods. By the time Alcaraz moved in, the cabin had already housed a small roster of professional players who went on to have solid ATP careers.

Something is fitting about that chain. A house built for a world number one, passed down to the next generation of Spanish tennis, one occupant at a time.

What you won’t find inside: a home theater, a wine cellar, a trophy room with dramatic lighting. The cabin isn’t a museum to his accomplishments — it’s a place to eat, sleep, recover, and get ready to do it all again tomorrow.

The Ferrero Factor

You can’t understand Alcaraz’s living situation without understanding Juan Carlos Ferrero — and the academy where this whole approach was born.

The story starts with Antonio Martínez Cascales, a tennis coach from Villena who founded the Equelite academy in 1990. Cascales had a young protégé named Juan Carlos Ferrero, and the academy was built in large part to develop players like him. It worked. Ferrero rose to world number one in 2003, won the French Open, and reached the US Open final.

After retiring, Ferrero took over the academy, rebranding it as the Ferrero Tennis Academy. And then he did something most former champions don’t bother with — he stayed. He coached. He developed players personally, hands-on, on the same clay courts where he once trained.

When a 15-year-old Alcaraz arrived from El Palmar in 2019, Ferrero saw something specific. Not just raw talent — though the foot speed and the forehand were already remarkable — but a willingness to commit fully to the process. Living at the academy wasn’t a suggestion. It was the foundation of the whole approach.

Ferrero has been open about why this matters. The academy removes distractions. No commute. No nightlife. No constant requests for appearances and interviews. You wake up, you train, you recover, you sleep. The cabin is part of that system — not a lifestyle choice but a training methodology.

Alcaraz and Ferrero worked together from 2019 through 2025, a partnership that produced multiple Grand Slam titles and a rise to world number one. In 2025, their professional coaching relationship ended, and Samuel López — who had already been part of Alcaraz’s broader support team — stepped into the head coaching role.

But the academy remains. The cabin remains. And the philosophy that Ferrero embedded — that proximity to the work matters more than comfort — is still very much how Alcaraz operates.

Not His Only Home

Alcaraz’s official residence is his family’s apartment in El Palmar, a village of around 7,000 people just outside the city of Murcia in southeastern Spain.

El Palmar sits in one of Spain’s warmest, driest regions. It’s agricultural land — olive groves, vineyards, open fields — with a tight-knit community where neighbors know each other and family ties run deep. The Alcaraz family has roots here, and it’s where Carlos grew up, where he first picked up a racket, and where his trophies are displayed in the family living room.

His father, Carlos Alcaraz González, was a tennis coach and club administrator — the reason a young Carlos had access to courts and structured training from the start. His mother, Virginia Garfia Escandón, worked at IKEA. It’s a grounded, working-class upbringing that shaped how he handles the money and attention that came later.

He has three brothers — Álvaro, who is older, and Sergio and Jaime, who are younger. Álvaro has become part of Carlos’s professional setup, traveling to tournaments as his hitting partner and informal assistant.

When Alcaraz goes home, this is where he goes. Off-season breaks, family time, recharging between the relentless ATP schedule — it all happens in El Palmar. The academy is where he works. Murcia is where he lives.

Why Villena?

Villena isn’t glamorous. It’s a small industrial city in the province of Alicante, about 30 minutes from the Mediterranean coast and Alicante airport, roughly two hours south of Madrid by train.

The landscape is dry and rocky. Olive groves. The occasional castle ruin on a hilltop. Summers regularly push past 35°C (95°F) with the kind of dry heat that makes your eyeballs feel like they’re shrinking.

Which, in a way, is the point. There’s not much to do here except train.

The Ferrero Tennis Academy — originally Equelite — sits on the outskirts of Villena in an area called Paraje Casas de Menor. The complex covers 120,000 square meters, and its facilities go well beyond just tennis courts: 10 clay courts, 7 hard courts, an indoor court, paddle tennis courts, a football pitch, a 400-meter running track, a golf course with putting holes, a Technogym-equipped gym, two swimming pools, a sauna, jacuzzi, physiotherapy clinic, restaurant, sports shop, and even a school for younger players.

That last part matters. The academy isn’t just for professionals grinding through the ATP Tour. It’s home to kids as young as 10, living away from their families, learning to balance schoolwork with five-hour training days. The residential units range from basic 25 square meter rooms for junior players to larger accommodations for touring professionals — like the cabin Alcaraz occupies.

In recognition of the academy’s most successful graduate, the central hard court has been renamed “Pista Carlos Alcaraz.” Local businesses in Villena have embraced him, too — a restaurant in town reportedly has a “Carlos Special” on the menu, and kids around the city wear his Nike shirts.

It’s a small-town hero story, playing out in real time, in a place that was known for pottery and swords before it was known for tennis.

What Happens Next?

Here’s the question Spanish tennis circles keep circling: how long does the cabin arrangement last?

Alcaraz is 23 now. He’s deep into his career, not at the beginning of it. At some point, a 90 square meter wooden box starts to feel less “disciplined and focused” and more “I would like a kitchen where I can open the fridge without hitting my elbow on the wall.”

There are reports that he’s considered building something larger on the academy grounds — still modest by professional athlete standards, but with actual living space and maybe a proper staircase. Nothing has been confirmed, and Alcaraz himself hasn’t publicly discussed it.

What’s more certain is the trajectory. Seven Grand Slams. Twenty-six titles. The youngest man to complete the Career Grand Slam. The cabin was the backdrop for all of it — the early mornings, the sore legs, the mental resets after tough losses.

Whether he stays another year or moves on to something bigger, the cabin has already done its job. It kept him close to the courts, close to the process, and far enough from the noise to focus on what actually matters.

A Different Kind of Superstar Home

We’ve seen the mansions. Rafa Nadal’s waterfront villa in Porto Cristo, Mallorca. Roger Federer’s architectural home overlooking Lake Zurich. Novak Djokovic’s penthouse in Monte Carlo has views that cost more than most people’s entire properties.

All gorgeous. All well-deserved. All exactly what you’d expect from the three greatest players to ever pick up a racket.

Alcaraz went the other direction.

And what makes it compelling isn’t that he can’t afford the alternatives. With $65 million in career prize money and an endorsement portfolio that includes some of the biggest brands in sports, he could buy a comparable property tomorrow — in cash — without making a dent.

He just doesn’t. Not yet, anyway.

There’s time for that. Right now, there are forehands to groove, Grand Slams to chase, and a training schedule that starts at 8 AM sharp on the academy courts.

The cabin suits him. It’s practical. It’s close to the work. It’s close to the people and the place that built him into what he is.

And honestly? Choosing to stay there might be the most impressive thing about him. Given that he’s won seven Grand Slams by age 23, that’s saying something.

The Carlos Alcaraz house — both of them — tells the whole story. A family apartment in a small village where his trophies sit in the living room, and a wooden cabin at an academy where he goes to win more of them.

What do you think — would you choose the cabin or the mansion if you were in his position? Drop your take in the comments. And if you’re curious about how other tennis stars live, check out our look at Novak Djokovic’s Monte Carlo apartment next.