As someone who’s walked through everything from mid-century Malibu estates to converted firehouses in Brooklyn, I never imagined I’d find myself critiquing the final home of a pope. But here we are.
Pope Francis, a man beloved for his humility, compassion, and courage to challenge tradition, spent his papacy—and his final moments—not in a palace, but in Casa Santa Marta, a quiet Vatican guesthouse better known for housing visiting clergy than housing history.
From an interior designer’s standpoint, I absolutely understand the intention: simplicity over spectacle. But as I studied every detail of this space, I kept wondering—does simplicity have to feel this soulless?
This article isn’t about tearing down what the Pope stood for. It’s about asking a bigger question: When your message is that powerful, shouldn’t your space support it?
Let’s walk through it, respectfully—and honestly.
- 📍 Location: Vatican City, adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica
- 💰 Estimated Price: Approximately $20 million (construction cost in 1996)
- 🏗️ Year Built/Remodeled: Built in 1996
- 🌳 Size of Land: Located within Vatican City, which spans 108 acres (44 hectares)
- 📐 Size of House: Five-story building with 131 rooms
- 🛏️ Rooms: 106 suites, 22 single rooms, and 1 apartment
The Exterior that Preaches Austerity or Bureaucracy?
Let’s start with the outside. If you didn’t know what this building was, you’d think it was a municipal housing office—or maybe the back office of a bank. Flat beige facade, identical boxy windows, minimal trim.
It’s not ugly. But it’s also not interesting. It feels sterile. The kind of place where you’d expect someone to get a passport stamped, not to hear the Gospel.
And I get it—Francis wanted simplicity. He was allergic to grandiosity. But architecture communicates. The message here? Don’t expect anything more than the bare minimum.
Honestly, the only personality comes from the Swiss Guards standing outside, and they weren’t part of the building plan.
Lobby Talk: Where Reception Meets Recession
Walk inside and you’re hit with a curious design mash-up: shiny marble floors, gold-gilded side tables, generic hotel reception desk. It’s as if a boutique hotel and a Vatican seminary got into an awkward handshake.
The two ornate console tables flanking the front desk feel like props. They’re trying to inject elegance into a space that was clearly meant for function. The problem is, it’s not elegant—it’s just mismatched.
This lobby tells a confusing story. Is it humble? Is it trying? Was someone afraid of color? One thing’s clear: this isn’t a place built for spiritual reflection or daily comfort. It’s a transit zone with expensive lamps.
I’ve designed waiting areas for hospitals that were warmer than this.
Papal Suite or Antique Showroom?
Now here’s where I did a double take. This is supposed to be the Pope’s personal sitting room. But it looks like a period film set that forgot which period it was shooting.
Blue velvet armchairs with gilded frames sit on high-gloss wooden floors that reflect everything like a mirror. It’s stiff, it’s cold, and it doesn’t tell you a thing about the man who lived here.
There’s no bookshelf, no artwork, no plant—nothing that whispers “lived-in.” The room feels frozen in time. Not sacred, not personal, just… staged.
And that’s where I think the design fails. Simplicity should not mean lifelessness. This room could’ve honored Francis’s ideals with natural materials, soft lighting, and human warmth. Instead, it feels like a formal waiting area for a bishop’s disciplinary hearing.
The Bedroom: Monastic or Morbid?
Here we are in Suite 201, the room where Pope Francis slept, prayed, and eventually died. And frankly? It feels more like a prop from an antique furniture museum.
The bed is a beast—ornate carvings, heavy wood, high headboard. This bed doesn’t say “I serve the poor.” It says, “someone commissioned this in 1910 and we didn’t have the heart to move it.”
I know the Pope didn’t order this furniture. But that’s the point. Nothing here looks chosen. It looks leftover.
The room is suffocating. Despite all the square footage, there’s no comfort. No art. No warmth. Just dark wood, hard surfaces, and sterile silence. It’s ironic that the man who lived so vividly spent his nights in such a lifeless shell.
Office of the People’s Pope: A Museum Piece
Let’s move to the study, where the Pope likely read and wrote. Again, we get aged wood, a crucifix, bare walls, and a velvet armchair that looks like it once belonged to a 19th-century opera baron.
Everything here feels lifted from a historical exhibit titled “Clerical Offices Through the Ages.” And yet, none of it feels reflective of Francis’s personal touch.
Where are the signs of life? Where’s the texture of humanity? A pen. A notebook. A photo. A plant. Something.
This is what happens when authenticity is mistaken for emptiness.
Chapel of the Holy Spirit: Faux Sanctuary in Polished Stone
Now, this is the chapel—the Pope’s own worship space inside Casa Santa Marta. Triangular ceiling, symmetrical design, patterned floor tiles. Modern? Yes. Reverent? Barely.
It’s too polished, too sharp. The floor shines like a showroom. The lights are clinical. The geometry dominates. It’s clean, but spiritually sterile.
A chapel should feel like refuge, not a designer showcase for beige marble.
For a man who spoke of the Church as a field hospital, this space feels more like a dental clinic for angels.
One Light Left On: The Final Image
This final image—Casa Santa Marta at night, with a single lit window—is poetic. Possibly Francis’s room. Possibly the chapel. We don’t know.
But what it feels like is everything this residence tried (and failed) to say.
This place wasn’t made to inspire. It wasn’t made to be beautiful. It was made to be just enough. That light feels like a whisper in a cold hallway.
And I can’t help but think: If the most powerful spiritual leader in the world chose to live like this, what message does that send? Is it a win for humility? Or a quiet loss for meaningful design?
Legacy in Stone and Silence
Francis rejected opulence, and rightly so. But what replaced it wasn’t warmth, or humanity—it was silence. Casa Santa Marta is empty in all the wrong ways.
I’ve seen homes built for single mothers in Detroit with more soul than this Vatican suite.
Good design doesn’t need gold. But it does need intention. Pope Francis’s message deserved more than a rented room with inherited furniture.
And while I admire his values, I’m left asking: Couldn’t we have done better by him, and for him?
If the Church wants to stay grounded, it doesn’t need to build higher towers. But it does need to rethink what it means to dwell with dignity.
1. Where does Pope Francis live now?
Pope Francis passed away on April 21, 2025, at the age of 88, in his residence at Casa Santa Marta within Vatican City. Following his death, the Vatican has entered the “sede vacante” period, during which the papal seat is vacant until a new pope is elected.
2. What is the address of Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis’s residence?
The address of Casa Santa Marta is:
His Holiness Pope Francis
Casa Santa Marta
00120 Vatican City
This guesthouse is located adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica within Vatican City.
3. How much is Casa Santa Marta worth?
Casa Santa Marta is a Vatican-owned property and is not on the real estate market, so it does not have a publicly assessed market value. As a religious and administrative facility within Vatican City, its worth is considered in terms of its function and significance rather than monetary value.
4. Why did Pope Francis choose to live in Casa Santa Marta instead of the Apostolic Palace?
Pope Francis chose to reside in Casa Santa Marta to reflect his commitment to humility and simplicity. He preferred the modest accommodations and communal environment of the guesthouse over the more opulent Apostolic Palace, aligning with his vision of a more accessible and pastoral papacy.
5. What will happen to Casa Santa Marta after Pope Francis’s death?
Following Pope Francis’s death, Casa Santa Marta has been sealed as part of the traditional Vatican protocol. It will likely resume its function as a guesthouse for clergy and as accommodation for cardinals during the conclave to elect the next pope.
The Design of a Life, or the Life of a Design?
Pope Francis didn’t need chandeliers or velvet drapes to prove a point. His power came from stepping away from all that. But Casa Santa Marta—the building, the interiors, the message they send—leaves me deeply conflicted as both a designer and someone who respects what this man stood for.
I’ve always believed that how we live shapes how we lead. Spaces speak. And this one, for all its humility, mostly whispers confusion.
The sitting room felt like it was staged by someone who had never met Francis. The bedroom had the warmth of a taxidermy display. The study read more “historical reenactment” than the daily working space of a spiritual guide. And the chapel, despite its purpose, couldn’t shake the feeling of a high-end hotel conference room dressed in piety.
Even the lobby, the first impression of a papal home, seemed undecided. Is it clerical? Is it corporate? Is it a 3-star Roman pensione hoping to get bumped to 4?
I remember visiting a home in Santa Fe years ago. The owner was a retired priest. He had a single room—bare stone walls, a wooden bench, and one small painting of St. Francis. But everything had intention. The place spoke. That memory flooded back to me looking through these photos. Because Casa Santa Marta, by contrast, didn’t speak. It recited.
If this space had been designed with Francis’s spirit in mind—true simplicity, warmth, and purpose—we might have had something deeply moving. Instead, we got polite austerity. And polite isn’t the same as powerful.
Let me be blunt: If I walked into a client’s home and saw this setup, I wouldn’t tell them it was humble. I’d tell them it was outdated, impersonal, and due for a rethink. And that’s exactly the conversation the Vatican should be having now.
Francis was a man of the people. But even the people deserve better furniture—and better lighting.
Interior design isn’t about trends. It’s about meaning—and making spaces that reflect who we are. Even popes. – Brad Smith Lead Designer, Omni Home Ideas
🙏 Rest in peace, Papa Francesco.
