Photo Essay: Hacienda San Francisco
By Carlos Aviles
Written on 29 May 2008
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An old Spanish hacienda, still occupied by the family, serves as a window to the past.
Casa Quilinchini
This is the family residence of the Quilinchini family.
Of Corsican descent, the established in Puerto Rico in the early 1800's.
You can see the chimney from the road, but few people venture to take a side trip and take a look at this hidden treasure.
The old Quilinchini family house is a work still in progress. According to the old lady that still lives there, the house foundations date back 300 years. Hard to believe, but when you walk around and take a look at the brick and mortar walls you got to wonder.
The family came originally from Corsica and settled in the southwest of Puerto Rico, in what is today the town of Sabana Grande. Fruits and vegetables were grown for 100 years and then sugar cane. When king sugar was deposed they started to keep cattle, business that still generates money for the estate.
A sugar mill was constructed in 1871 but in the 1930's it stop working. Some writing on the interior walls that you can peek from outside the windows suggest it was used as a class room in the 1940's.
The house has a typical tropical architecture and over the years new additions have been made. It's garden is a bucolic place full of orange, grapefruit and mango trees, that gives a peaceful and serene ambient, a time warp to times gone right on the town metro area.
It's a place worth visit if you're in Puerto Rico.
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This article has been submitted to the recurring theme “Roadside Attractions.”
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