Lebrún House

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: S. XVIII

The Lebrún family settled in Santa Cruz de Tenerife from the early 18th century, successfully engaging in commerce. They built their magnificent residence on the south side of the plaza of the church of San Francisco and the adjacent convent, on a large plot occupying an entire block between San José, El Tigre, San Francisco and El Sí streets.

The house was one of the most opulent in the city. With three storeys (a skyscraper at that time), it followed the patterns of typical Canarian popular architecture mansions. Its façade featured a splendid traditional continuous wooden balcony that stretched along the top floor over San Francisco street and the corner with El Tigre (now Villalba Hervás). The openings were arranged in a whimsical but harmonious distribution, where the lower wooden doors played with the upper guillotine windows so characteristic of Canarian architecture.

The construction had a wonderful garden located on the southern side of the plot facing San José street, accessed from the mansion via wide staircases. In the centre of this garden space there was a marble fountain, very much in the French eighteenth-century taste, not large but of exquisite Versailles artistic style. Now disappeared, it featured a spout in the form of a semi-nude mythological figure with classical reminiscence.  

At the rear of the building, facing El Sí street, were the kitchens, storerooms and stables.

In 1841 the building, with over a century of history, was converted into the Hotel Inglés. Years later, in 1880, it was enlarged by its new owner, Camacho, a Portuguese from the island of Madeira who applied here his hotel experience from his native island.

The former Lebrún mansion (later Hotel Inglés, and finally Hotel Camacho) was one of the most interesting historic buildings from the perspective of Canarian architecture that Santa Cruz had. Its demolition took place in the 1960s during the careless and aggressive urban reform of the so-called Quadrilateral.

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