Pablo Torres, technical manager of Historical Heritage of the Town Hall, reviews the history of the emblematic property that bears the name of one of its last owners.
The Doña Chana Cultural Park is a large green lung of more than 13,000 square meters that presides over the urban area of La Orotava. The farm and the buildings it houses were acquired by the Town Hall in 2003 for a price of 3.9 million euros. A large public investment that allowed the Villa to keep for everyone’s use a space that was initially known as La Viñita and then had a value of just one thousand pesetas.
Pablo Torres, technical manager of Historical Heritage of the Town Hall since 2003, reviews the history of the emblematic property that bears the name of one of its last owners and currently houses gardens, exhibition halls, the Municipal Environmental Education Center, the orchard ecological and urban, and the rehearsal room of the Orotava Musical Group.
As Torres explains, “it is an old farm made up of a terraced garden, as well as the remains of old orchards, distributed in decreasing terraces, adapted to the pronounced unevenness of the terrain. The space is singled out by a main building, which was erected following eclectic guidelines, among which prevails the cottage trend with British roots, seconded by service buildings.
The first documentary reference that exists on the place “goes back to late nineteenth century, to 1895, when it was registered in his name by Juan Abdón Hernández Torres, who, in turn, had bought it a few years earlier from Francisco Hernández González. In that first notarial entry of 1895, it was described as a land of one hectare, forty-nine areas and eight centiares, known then as La Viñita, whose value was estimated at 1,000 pesetas at the time”, about six euros in the present.
It houses the urban garden, the Environmental Education Center and the Orotava Musical Group
«Just two years later, in 1897, the property of La Viñita passed into the hands of José Govea Ramos, who would later present it as guarantee when he assumed the position of junior administrator of properties and rights of the State in the judicial district of La Orotava. , in 1902. After his death, in 1910, the farm passed to his three children, until in 1918 when the youngest of them, Juan Govea León, acquired his shares in the property from his brothers and registered it in his name,” he points out. this municipal technician.
Bought for seven minors
“Already in the year 1927, Juan Govea sold the land to the underage siblings Rafael, Antonio, Manuel, María, Rosario, Francisco and Facunda Remedios Suárez García, for the amount of 12,500 pesetas,” explains Torres, who clarifies that ” Given the unique family situation in which they found themselves, the seven brothers were represented by Cándido Pérez Estrada, then mayor of La Orotava, and by Domingo González Regalado Pérez, an agricultural businessman, under power of attorney granted by his mother, Lorenza García Cabrera. A few years after its acquisition, the estate significantly changed its original configuration, since it was during this time that the main house was built on the site that until then had been occupied by an old traditional-style masonry building.
Since that time, and in consideration of the youngest of the brothers, Facunda Remedios, the property became known as Villa Remedios. Since then, it had external rooms that served as “laundry room, kitchen, garage, tool room, housing for the mediators and stables,” he explains. A garden surrounded the space closest to the residence, extending through the terraces located to the south, while the terraces facing north were intended for crops.
Sebastiana Bravo de Laguna passed away in 1993, twenty years after her husband, Mariano Brier
Torres highlights that “in 1942 the material division of the assets of the Suárez García family took place, with Villa Remedios being awarded to María, Rosario, Francisco and Facunda Remedios. Just four years later, in 1946, they sold the farm to Mariano Brier y Ponte and his wife Sebastiana Bravo de Laguna y del Castillo, until then residents of Garachico, for the amount of 64,000 pesetas. This popular couple, fully integrated into the heart of Orotava society since his arrival, would reside in his mansion in Los Cuartos until his death. Mariano Brier, a law graduate and municipal judge, died in 1973, while his wife, Sebastiana Bravo de Laguna, popularly known as Doña Chana, died 20 years later, in 1993. Both will be remembered, among other aspects, for being the founders of the convent of Nuestra Señora de Candelaria, of the Sisters of the Cross.
Domingo de Laguna, in his book Characters in the life of Canary Islandspoints out that Doña Chana “was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on November 27, 1908, the daughter of Jacinto Bravo de Laguna and Manrique de Lara, provincial deputy and deputy to Cortes for Fuerteventura, historical representative of the House of Cabrera, known as the Colonels of Fuerteventura, and of Leonor del Castillo y Matienzo, of the house of the Counts of Vega Grande de Guadalupe. She was a very religious woman, linked to Catholic Action, United Hands or the Association to Fight Cancer, which she presided over for more than 30 years ».
After the death of Sebastiana Bravo de Laguna, the house was left uninhabited and the gardens no longer received the necessary care. They were years of abandonment in which there were fears for the conservation of this unique space. Until in 2003, the plenary session of the town council “adopted the agreement to acquire the property with the purpose of not only safeguarding the property, restoring it without altering its essence, but also to create a large urban park,” recalls Torres.
