Las Palmas de Anaga Estate

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: c. 1648-81

This is one of the most representative examples of traditional rural Canarian architecture located in the municipality of Santa Cruz.

The colonisation of the territories of the Anaga massif was almost immediate after the conquest of the Island. Since the 16th century, population centres have been found in the area, where three predominant crops alternated: sugar cane, vine and cereals. These places were colonised through the construction of self-sufficient estates, given their distance from population centres and ports. One of those barely preserved is this one in Las Palmas de Anaga.

Pedro Fernández de Ocampo, owner of the lands, commissioned the construction of a chapel dedicated to San Gonzalo de Amarante, which was completed in 1648. A whole complex of a single storey in a C shape was added to this, leaving the corridor bordering the courtyard uncovered. In the layout of the house there is a clear difference in the treatment of the rooms according to their content. A hallway indicates the functional dichotomy: service area (warehouses, workshops, cellars and granary), and on the other hand, the living quarters of the lords, where brick and stone alternate and a magnificent roof with coffered ceilings of some quality.

The chapel is, without doubt, the noblest space of the complex. The semicircular arch of its entrance is marked with excellent ashlar masonry, as is the bell gable. The coffered ceiling still bears traces of pictorial decoration taken from the Renaissance repertoire and everything is topped with a sober pendant. This chapel housed a very interesting painting representing the primitive image of the Virgin of Candelaria, a carving that disappeared from its convent in the town of Candelaria at the beginning of the 19th century as a result of a disastrous maritime storm.

The entire estate complex is made with the usual materials in traditional Canarian architecture: stone, pine resin, tiles and lime.

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