diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/r-matlab/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/r-matlab/package.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..221f5f7b31
--- /dev/null
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/r-matlab/package.py
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+# Copyright 2013-2019 Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC and other
+# Spack Project Developers. See the top-level COPYRIGHT file for details.
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: (Apache-2.0 OR MIT)
+
+from spack import *
+
+
+class RMatlab(RPackage):
+    """Emulate MATLAB code using R"""
+
+    homepage = "https://cloud.r-project.org/package=matlab"
+    url      = "https://cloud.r-project.org/src/contrib/matlab_1.0.2.tar.gz"
+    list_url = "https://cloud.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/matlab"
+
+    version('1.0.2', sha256='a23dec736c51ae1864c1a53caac556a2f98e8020138a3b121badb0f5b7984154')
+
+    depends_on('r@2.15:', type=('build', 'run'))