The Casa de la Tejas Verde is located
on the 2nd street in Miramar, between the 3rd and the 5th
Avenues, right after the exit of the Calzada tunnel.
The Casa de la Tejas Verde (House
with Green Roof Tiles) arises the curiosity of everybody due to
the beauty of its unique architecture. It is located at the
corner of the 5th Avenue and the 2nd street in Miramar.
HISTORY
The Casa de Tejas Verdes was built
for Alberto de Armas that is also known as the butler in the
Presidential Palace during the presidency of Mario García
Menocal. The land belonged to La Miranda estate in 1911 and
it passed through different owners, mortgages and auctions
until it was purchased by Alberto de Armas in 1925. At that
time Miramar was characterized by the ostentatious houses
with large gardens and leafy wide streets.
He commissioned the architect,
civil engineer and pre-revolution politician Luis Echarte
Mazorra to build a mansion for himself. Echarte completed
the house in 10 months in 1926. Echarte is also the
architect of the amphitheater on Malecón.
There are two gossips about the
owner of the Casa de Tejas Verdes: according to the first
one, José López Rodríguez, the Galician banker and the owner
of Havana’s first skyscraper Edificio López Serrano,
nicknamed Pote, built the house and committed suicide there.
In fact, Pote killed himself in the Edificio López Serrano
in 1921, five years before the Casa de Tejas Verdes was
built. The second gossip was about Carlos Miguel de Céspedes,
the Secretary of Public Works. He was nicknamed as El
Dinámico due to his great contribution to urban works in
Havana. According to the legend, the house was built by
Carlos Miguel de Céspedes for his mistress Esmeralda that
had beautiful green eyes, to be able to see her even from
his house located on the other side of the Almendares river
(current 1830 Restaurant). This story is also not true.
In 1943 the house was sold to
Luisa Catalina Rodríguez Faxas that was just 20 years old at
that time. She spent a part of her money that she had
recently inherited, for the purchase of the house. She
married twice; however, his first husband died in 1959, and
she divorced her second husband a few months later after the
marriage. Until the end of her life, she lived with
Marisabel, the niece of her second husband, in this house,
bequeathing the house to Marisabel in 1999. When Marisabel
died a few months later, the house passed into the hands of
the state in 2000, as she had not any heir.
ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES
The building is one of few
examples in Cuba, built in American Queen Anne-style. With
the cone-shaped turret and the steeply pitched roof, covered
by American green tiles, it gives an impression, as if it
has emerged from the fairy world. The green tiles are the
most outstanding feature of the sumptuous house. With the
dormer windows and the wraparound porch, the house looks
quite cute. It has three floors and three fronts, looking to
the 5th Avenue, the 2nd street and the garden. The entrance
is on the 2nd street.
The property had originally
several rooms on the ground room, such as the entrance hall,
the dining room, the library, the bathroom, the kitchen, the
laundry and the pantry. On the second floor, there were five
rooms, used for different purposes, three bathrooms and four
restrooms. The third room was intended for the use of the
servants, consisting of the vestibule, the family room with
the bathroom, and three personal rooms that share the second
bathroom. All the floors were connected by a helical
staircase, paved with Carrera marble like the ground of all
floors. With iron railing and wooden handrails, it looks
like a snail.
In 2005, the Oficina del
Historiador de la Ciudad de La Habana undertook the
restoration of the building with the aim of returning it to
its original image, as the property had high architectural
value and it was located in an important residential area.
After an intense search of the documents and the photographs
that showed the original sketch of the mansion, the team,
consisting of the architects Lina Alba, Ernesto Pérez and
Abiel San Miguel, could exactly reproduce the design of the
property. The floors and the frames were in good condition,
but the walls required to be rehabilitated; they were
reconstructed by the same constructive technique. The
distribution of the rooms on the ground- and the second
floor is preserved, and the interiors are decorated with
contemporary furniture that has elements of the past.
However, the attic was transformed into the conference hall
and internet room where lectures on urban planning and
architecture are given. The restoration of the property was
completed in 2009 and it was inaugurated in 2010. The
restoration project was awarded the National Prize for
Restoration and Conservation in 2010.
The Promoter Center for Modern and
Contemporary Architecture, Urbanism and Interior Design that
occupies the building currently, shows effort to generate
creative impulse in the new projects, linked to its
branches, without losing the connection of the future with
the past. The center is used also for conferences, panels,
book readings, exhibitions and workshops.
The landscaped garden includes a
pool and modern sculptures.
Luisa Catalina Rodríguez Faxas, born in Spain in 1922, belonged to high society. Because of her family’s social status, she was accustomed to make the scene in elite clubs; she was giving even piano concerts in different places in Havana. She married Mario Cabrera Saqui, the writer and lawyer. They had three children.
When she went to US with her husband and children to spend the holiday at their home in Miami, her husband died by heart attack on the very day of their arrival. She had to return to Havana to put right the business of her husband and his properties in the island, so that she left her children to the paternal aunt. Her plan was to fly back to Miami for her children and return together with them to Cuba. However, the relations between Cuba and the US worsened day by day. Traveling became increasingly difficult; likewise, mail and telephone communications were equally difficult. Finally, diplomatic relations were broken off, so that Luisa was never able to meet her children again.
She was left alone in the immense house with her memories and her dogs and the eventual company of Mumi, the old cook. She was reading non-stop during the night and sleeping all day. She had lost the desire to live. Her neighbors saw her wandering until dawn. In her solitude, his acquaintance with the ophthalmologist Dr. Pedro Hechavarría intensified. He was supporting her financially, and he was bringing fruits and vegetables to her from his farm during his visits that were becoming frequent. By the end of the 1960’s they decided to marry. This decision was inacceptable and inexcusable for her relatives in the US. A few month later she got divorced and returned to her solitude again.
Her sons never wrote to her and her daughter did so only once in a while. Years later, in one of her numerous attempts to contact her children, she received a heartbreaking reply, informing that she should never bother them again.
In 1970s, she started to live with Marisabel, the daughter of the younger brother of Pedro Hechavarría, whom Luisa loved as a true niece. Marisabel that was in her 20s at that time, revived Luisa. Marisabel brought many young people to the house; some of them became regular, even stayed overnight. The house became a place for social gatherings. Luisa was happy to be called as Aunt Luisa. She went to the movies, to the theatre, made shopping, visited other provinces, and even completed a Russian course. In the first half of 1990s, she lived practically alone with Marisabel in the crumbling house. She had no money to take care of the maintenance of the house. Even though, she was offered to swap her house that had fallen into decay, for another residence in Miramar and reviewed numerous residences near the river, she never accepted to get out the house. The consistent refusal of Luisa led to the gossip that the treasure of her family was hidden in a hole in the basement or behind of a false wall. Like the many legends about this house, this is also not true.
In 1999 she died by lung cancer. After seven months of her death, Marisabel died by heart attack. When Luisa was young, she asked a gypsy to read her hand at a fair. The fortune teller paled in doing so and declined to reveal the details of the reading; she just told her that her ending would be sad, very sad.
