TEMPORARILY CLOSED !!!
During the Haitian revolution (1791-1804) all shores of Cuba,
particularly the eastern coasts, were flown by hundreds of dread
French settlers that were trying to save not only their lives,
but also their economic power. Victor Constantan Couzo that knew
how to use the soil for the cultivation of cocoa and coffee
corns, was one of these immigrants.
He had brought his beautiful mulatta Isabel María
with him, housing her in the farm that he called La Isabelica as
the sign of his love. Twenty-five slaves were serving in the
farm, but his lovely María Isabel was an exception. The house, built over a period of ten
years, was made of limestone and clay.
Victor’s empire
received a great blow and came to an end, when in 1875 the mambises of the Liberation Army set the property into fire and
devastated the plantations. The remaining ruins were converted
to the museum in 1961. The Isabelica Museum was declared
National Monument in 1991, and World Heritage Site of UNESCO in
2000.
The cafetal (coffee plantation) is 1120 meters above the sea level.
To reach there, you need to walk about 2 km after Grand Piedra.
The road is partly in the form of a sand path.
It is a two-story
house covered in red lichen and surrounded by ferns. There are
17 exhibition rooms in the coffee museum. About 600 objects,
many found in the archeological excavations made near the ruins,
others donated by French successors, are
exhibited in these rooms.
The
museum’s collection contains original furniture.
On the ground floor you can find the
tool room with tools for domestic and agricultural use, the
coffee store, the machine room with a coffee pulper and an
aventadore (winnowing machine), coffee drying rooms, the
kitchen, and the pantry.
On the upper floor you can find a sundial and a bell. There was only one single entrance with a doghouse as a measure of protection against any uprising.
There are also some accessories that were used to punish the slaves.
The outer rooms served as the bathroom of Victor and Isabel.
Outside of the house you will find the mill (tahona), the klin made of limestone, and a small barrack where the domestic slaves stayed.
A cup of coffee is also included in the
entrance fee. Apart from this, it is also possible to buy
coffee.