By Domingo Medina.| On the corner of Calle del Agua (today, Nava and Grimón), where the La Laguna Casino is currently located, begins San Agustín Street, one of the main and oldest streets in the city. The name Calle Real appears in the Minutes of the Cabildo in 1505. According to the historian Manuela Marrero, “sometimes it is named after the real street; However, in the idea of the time, all the streets were royal because they belonged to the king, just like the royal roads. In the documents the roads and paths of the Guanches are differentiated, these are not real.”
The old name Calle de Los Mercaderes appears in the Minutes of the Cabildo from 1508 to 1511, and that of Santo Espíritu comes from the dedication to the Holy Spirit, the name given to the church of the monastery built by the Augustinian monks on that street. , and whose founder is Saint Augustine. In the Minutes of the Cabildo of 1808 it already appears with the current name of San Agustín street.
This road was paved in 1542, later it was paved and is currently paved with stone tiles. It is one of the roads in the historic center along with La Carrera, which maintains the greatest number of old buildings.
At the beginning of the road, on the left side as you go up, is the side of the mansion where the La Laguna Casino is located, the next home was the main one of the privateer Amaro Rodríguez Felipe (Amaro Pargo). Below is the home of the Van den Heede family, its first owner, Don Guillermo, was a merchant who arrived in La Laguna in 1725, from the Netherlands. The magnificent building is an example of traditional Canarian architecture, it preserves inside an extraordinary cloistered patio with high columns and footings, a mezzanine, and as was traditional, a barn in the upper part. This house later belonged to Don Emilio Gutiérrez Salazar, and is currently owned by his heirs. On the right side, several buildings of considerable architectural value are preserved, one of which houses the headquarters of the Teidagua mixed company. On the corner of Viana, on this same side, and in a recently restored old building, a hotel has been installed that bears the name of San Agustín.
Next, once this street intersects with Viana, we find Casa Linares, a three-story house with a basement, with beautiful carpentry and finished with tiles. This building was built by Francisco Linares in 1750. The Normal School of Teachers, the School of Surveyors and the School of Agricultural Experts were installed there, until its transfer to the Román house, on this same street, where the UNED is currently located.
The Montañés house is one of the most distinguished buildings in San Agustín. Two-story house with a mezzanine that was built in 1746 by its owner, Sergeant Major Francisco Montañés. Currently, and after an extensive and magnificent renovation, it is the headquarters of the Canary Islands Advisory Council. It has a Canarian patio inside worth visiting.
Recently restored, in the next house, on this same side of the street, the headquarters of the Cristino de Vera Foundation and the Caja-Canarias Cultural Space have been installed, adapting the old 18th century house, which was the residence of José Martín Méndez , dean of the Cathedral of La Laguna, and which later passed by inheritance to the Saavedra Martínez Barona family.
Considered one of the most important houses or palaces in La Laguna, and on the corner of Tabares de Cala, is the Lercaro house or palace, which was ordered to be built in 1593 by the island’s lieutenant general and doctor of laws, Mr. Francisco Lercaro de León, who was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, eldest son of the Genoese Jerónimo Lercaro, married to Catalina Justiniani and Justiniani. The house is built on a plot of land belonging to the public notary Gaspar Justiniano.
This building stands out for its Genoese-style façade, which preserves the coat of arms of its first owner. Inside, the great wood work of the coffered ceilings and corridors stands out. The Lercaro palace was declared a Site of Cultural Interest, with the category of Monument in 1983.
This building was acquired by the Island Council and was used as the Museum of History and Anthropology of Tenerife, in November 1993, which takes us through the history of our Island from the time of the Conquest to the present day.
THE LEGEND OF LERCARO
Legend has it, transmitted orally for centuries in La Laguna, that a young woman named Catalina Lercaro was going to marry an older man with whom she was not in love. On the day of the wedding and dressed in her wedding dress, she commits suicide by jumping into a well that was in the backyard of the house. As a consequence of this event, the Lercaro family left La Laguna and moved their home to La Orotava.
In 1802 in La Laguna, according to Juan Primo de la Guerra in his Diary, “on Carnival Monday, masks were barely seen in the town. Those who had formed the Indians’ party on the previous night gathered yesterday in the house that Don Diego Lercaro has empty on Calle Real.”
