La Harpe House

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1744

At the corner of José Murphy street with Villalba Hervás (formerly Tigre) there was a magnificent building of traditional Canarian typology built around 1744 at the initiative of the wealthy merchant of French origin Pedro la Harpe.

The mansion, three storeys high, had a main façade facing the steep slope of Tigre street. The wall was smooth, only a huge convex moulding marked the beginning of the parapet that ran along the front, on which the gargoyles rested. A simple cornice crowned the parapet. The corners of the building were made of millstone.

The interior of the building had a magnificent courtyard. An open corridor on the third floor was supported by slender pinewood columns with elegant capitals that rose two storeys above the floor. In the centre of the courtyard, among lush vegetation, stood a two-and-a-half-metre-high fountain topped by a marble sculptural group representing Saint Anthony of Padua with the Child Jesus.

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