The two portals, of different sizes and proportions, were once both owned by the Massida family. They have rounded stone arches and Sardinian tile roofs. The portal on the right also has a dovecote with double windows.
The left portal leads to a small courtyard, at the end of which are the ruins of a dwelling built in 1928, as shown by the date carved in the keystone of the arch of the building’s small loggia. As in all courtyard houses, there is a well, an indispensable feature since there was no water supply in Simala until the nineteen fifties, so water for irrigating the vegetable garden, washing clothes and all the other domestic uses had to be drawn from the residence’s fountain or from springs near the town centre.
The monumental entrance on the right was built in 1920. It leads to a large space once used as a shelter for livestock and storing work implements.
Since it was intended to allow the passage of carts carrying sheaves of wheat, oats, hay or beans, the height, the size and the geometrical proportions in general, were standard.
Bollards to prevent the sturdy wheels of carts damaging the jambs can still be seen at the sides of the portal. Once, the wheels were solid but they were later replaced with spoked wheels when a ruling promulgated by the Sardinian kingdom prevented the owners of solid-wheel vehicles from entering the cities of Cagliari and Sassari.
