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Upstairs, downstairs

Josefina Yanguas of Cafe Pamplona lives over the coffeehouse, in a space designed just for her.

"I xram going to open a coffeehouse," Josefina Yanguas proclaimed to friends 43 years ago, and she did. Since taking that bold step, Yanguas has lived and worked in Harvard Square, where her Cafe Pamplona has become a Cambridge institution.

Yanguas left Pamplona, Spain, for Cambridge in the late '40s. She worked at whatever jobs she could find - cook, seamstress, salesclerk. But she realized she missed the coffeehouses of her homeland. "This was in the 1950s, when there were very few coffeehouses and no real coffeehouses like in Spain, where people could come and talk and meet one another," she says. "There, you had a particular coffeehouse you went to; it was yours."

She found a suitable building on Bow Street: There was a street entrance to a basement big enough for a cafe, a floor for a retail tenant above that, and about 900 square feet of living space on the top two floors. The wooden house, circa 1830, had once been a commercial building on Brattle Street; it had been moved twice and altered several times, landing on its present site in 1868. The former owner, a priest, had rented out rooms. "He lived in one big open room on the first floor; then there were little rooms blocked off upstairs," Yanguas says.

Harvard Square real estate was pricey even then, and the house cost about $23,000. "It was like a million dollars to me, as I was only making $36 a week," Yanguas says. She knew nothing about owning or running a business, but through friends, she was able to raise the money for a down payment.

Then, with help from a young architect, Ned Hoffman, and his wife, Patsy, an artist, Yanguas set to work. First, they set up the basement coffeehouse and opened it to patrons, drawing both Harvard students and families homesick for their native Spain. On the first floor, "we had to put in supporting beams that had been removed - it's a wonder the place didn't fall down," Yanguas says. And upstairs, the architect designed a comfortable apartment in a '50s style that now looks classic.

Yanguas's main floor has a living area on one side of the staircase large enough for a sectional sofa and an Eames-style lounge chair and ottoman. The kitchen is on the other side of the stairs, and along the corridor connecting the two rooms is the dining area, where Yanguas has placed a large mission-style table and chairs for eight.

"He had a great sense of space," Yanguas says of the architect. "He designed so that a small space could look big." The walls are painted white and the wood floors stained dark, but their austerity is softened by groups of paintings, drawings, and prints. Built-in floor-to-ceiling shelves hold books, crafts made by friends, and folk art.

Much of Yanguas's furniture is Spanish-inspired, and her home is filled with tokens of her visits to Spain. A ceramic clock comes from Barcelona, an old tile from a friend. Against a wall in the dining area is a carved wooden chest, a Spanish reproduction purchased in Boston. Above it is a portrait by Patsy Hoffman of Yanguas as a young woman; there is a painting of a young girl by Conger Metcalf, who taught at Boston University for years.

The original tiny kitchen was "a mishmash with doors," Yanguas says, but this one is sized just for her. "Ned redesigned the kitchen for me, because I am very little - I do not like overhead cabinets, because I cannot reach them," she says. "He adjusted the countertops to my height." The lower cabinets are stained dark walnut, and the countertops are black slate.

Behind the living area, Yanguas has a small, austere bedroom and a good-size bathroom, tiled in pale gray, with plenty of storage. The passage between bedroom and bath is a walk-through closet, "the perfect dressing room," Yanguas says. And on the top floor, under the eaves, are a guest room and Yanguas's office.

Yanguas, now in her 80s, keeps active going up and down the stairs to the coffeehouse. "I'm often there every night," she says. "I love it because people who used to come here as students visit and bring back their children and their grandchildren, reliving their old Harvard Square days," she says. "I work very hard, but the coffeehouse, it's worked out well."

And Yanguas intends her home to become a legacy. "I had the house designated a Cambridge landmark, so when I am gone, this will be my contribution to Harvard Square and Cambridge. ... This building will be one they cannot alter or destroy."