In the second half of the 20th century, the building was acquired directly by the Junta de Freguesia de Palmeira (the civil parish council) which concesstioned the property to IPALTUR Investimentos Turísticos, S.A., under a renewable long-term contract. There remained no vestiges of these elements to assist future work and many of the tiles of artistic value were destroyed, as was the interior woods. In the course of the debacle many of the decorative elements of the interior, principally the ceramics (such as the azulejos, floor-tiles and roofing) were damaged. This project was fruitless and in vain, as multiple divergences developed during the construction and conflicts with the local government authority ensued. Francisco Joaquim Alves de Macedo acquired the palace and restarted the work on the building, without recuperating the already damaged exterior and interior. In 1938, it was sold for 165 contos to an English nobleman, who later sold the building to the librarian of the Count of Vizela, Alberto Torres de Figueiredo.
Incomplete, its budget rounded 370 contos. The construction was suspended in 1919, at a time when the interior of the home, was still in a state of basic comforts. Korrodi's project was based on his idealized concept of the Habitação Nobre de Província ( Provincial Nobles' House), a typology that the architect was dedicated to at the beginning of the 20th century, and which ".evoked, across diverse inspirational sources, one of the art of the Middle Ages and one from a determined social lifestyle, of the triumphal burgers of the 19th century, while grounded in tradition and progress." The castle's name came from the patroness, whose diminutive form ( Chica) was the origin of its popular name Francisca Peixoto Rego was active in the import of many of the arboreal plant species from Brazil, used to landscape the property. The project was conceived and executed in 1915, by Swiss architect (and later naturalized Portuguese) Ernesto Korrodi, under contract with João José Ferreira Rego, then married to the Brazilian Francisca Peixoto Rego. The rounded tower along the northern facade
Western facade and entrance portico, showing the three floors and colonnade porchĭetail of the front entrance, showing the large arcade windows