The Méndez-Fonseca Mansion

The quintessential mansion of traditional Canarian architecture, Casa Méndez-Fonseca de la Orotava, better known as “Casa de los Balcones” or House of the Balconies, is unquestionably the highest expression of traditional Canarian urban architecture on the island of Tenerife.

Built between 1632 and 1675, on Calle San Francisco in the urban area of ​​the town of Orotava, surrounded by illustrious ancestral homes, all of them bearing storied coats of arms of nobles in marble or basalt, the Casa de Méndez-Fonseca, for its incomparable courtyard and its excellent façade, shines as only she knows and can.

This aristocratic mansion, paid for with the income obtained with the trade of malmsey wine from the Canary Islands, the Canary, which had such prestige in Europe at the end of the 16th century and part of the 17th C, was finished by Mrs. Juana Nieto and Mr Juan de Castro Bazo y Merino who married on October 7, 1657. With the passage of time and the extinction of different family branches, it was inherited by Mrs. Juana Méndez de Castro, wife of Colonel Mr. Alonso de Fonseca Mesía y Llarena. From here it passed to their son Mr. Francisco de Fonseca, alderman and captain who died unmarried, but who, around 1715, installed the coat of arms that currently appears on the façade.

Being the carpentry, the works in tea wood (Canarian pine), one of the most outstanding elements of the traditional architecture of Tenerife, misnamed Mudejar architecture by some authors, If there is an example in which carpentry reaches a supreme level of execution in any house, mansion or palace in Tenerife, this is undoubtedly the case in this mansion in the North of the Island.

Not only do the extraordinary floors of large planks of tea stand out, or the marvelous coffered ceilings in its main halls or the curious lattice-lined spiral staircase that leads to the second floor, the main floor... no, the woodwork reaches a superlative level in the exterior balcony and in the different galleries and balustrades of the courtyard, without forgetting the imposing entrance door of the only façade.

This Tenerife mansion, undoubtedly a "must" on the island of Tenerife, something that is impossible not to visit when visiting the largest of the Canary Islands, responds to the old term "casa sobrada", a main house, of three heights, where the upper floor served as a granary, the central one, the second floor, was intended for the lords and the lower one, for service and work.

The façade on its top floor is occupied by a continuous balcony of superb construction. One of the most outstanding wooden balconies in the world. It is a balcony with nine bodies, with eight wooden pillars. The seven front bodies made up of five coffered parapets carved with floral motifs and the two sides with three coffers. On the caissons, ten pairs of turned balusters follow one another, the separations between each pair of balusters being a small wooden arch on which the handrail, the main railing of the balcony, sits. The set of which we have not yet mentioned the double sets of corbels, also made of wood on which everything rests, constitutes an authentic filigree that shows the very high level that has always characterized carpentry work in Tenerife in general and in the town of Orotava in particular.

The second body of the façade, which corresponds to the second floor, is presided over by five extraordinary wrought iron balconies that protect the exit of five large double-door windows. On the central balcony, the aforementioned coat of arms sits.

Under each wrought iron balcony, forming the ground floor, two large sash windows on each side and the large main gate in the center.

Another characteristic element of this extraordinary façade is the graffito that runs through all its corners.

On the Canarian courtyard of this unbeatable Tenerife mansion, we could be writing without interruption. Its beauty is indescribable. The profusion of its vegetation, the presence of an authentic traditional wooden press, the succession of galleries profusely carved in tea wood, the height of it, all help to generate a magical atmosphere of richness as well as simplicity, of grandeur, of achievement, of history, of uniqueness, of harmony that make this “patio” something unique, without comparison. A jewel not to be missed.