Casa Cumella

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: ca. 1779 · Authors: Antonio Samper

This stately building, located in the lower part of Calle del Castillo, is one of the few examples of magnificent civil architecture prior to the nineteenth century that still survives in Santa Cruz. Identical in form and concept to the building "El Globo", located on the same street a little further up, at the corner with Calle Valentín Sanz, it is conjectured that both may be the work of the military engineer Antonio Samper, stationed in Tenerife at the end of the 1770s.

Casa Cumella presents itself as a three-storey construction, a true skyscraper for its time, with a façade facing the main street with windows closed by glass panes, a real luxury at the time. The composition of the building as a whole is absolutely rational and symmetrical, with the presence of openings framed with basaltic stone bands in their vertical lines, a material that also appears on the corners of the building. 

Framed within the typical scheme of urban architecture intended to house the wealthiest social class of the late eighteenth century, the lower floor had premises for businesses and offices; the upper floors were dedicated to the residence. Inside it had a large courtyard, now disappeared due to the different commercial uses the building's ground floor has supported throughout its history.

Despite the transformations suffered and the anachronistic colour of its façade, the construction ensemble presents, with its symmetrical openings and its flat rooftop enclosed by railings and plinths, a harmony and solidity typical of the Enlightenment ideas of the time it was erected.  

The house's name comes from the fact that it was inhabited by the wealthy merchant, owner and industrialist of Catalan origin, Juan Cumella y Monner (1818-1898), who arrived in Tenerife in 1839, married the following year to Felipa González Delgado, the true owner by inheritance of the house on Calle del Castillo. Juan Cumella, from his definitive establishment in Santa Cruz from 1846 onwards, became involved in the social and political life of the city, soon becoming the leader of the Tenerife conservatives until his death, which occurred in that same house on 4 December 1898.

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