8/9/2019 The Importance of Cultural Heritage in Vieques Island

1/8

1

THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

IN VIEQUES ISLAND

By Jorge Ortiz Colom, R.A.

Preservation Architect/Institute of Puerto Rican Culture/Ponce, PR

VIEQUES'SBUILTURBANANDRURALHERITAGE represents a very important epoch in theeconomic exchanges between Puerto Rico and neighboring islands. More than the otherSpanish colonies, Puerto Rico thanks to its strategic location was a cultural and economiccrossroads between the smaller French and English-ruled islands and the Spanish Caribbeanworld.

This is reflected in the architectural and building influences of places and structures stillremaining in the Isla Nena soil. Some estates like Campaa (near the shooting field inBarrio Puerto Diablo) and city houses like the Delerme Anduze House, one block from the

square, show great similarity with French Antillean vernacular, thus witnessing one of thecultural ingredients of this island's colonization. Other houses, more similiar to the criolloones seen on Puerto Rico's Big Island, remind the observer that Vieques belongs to a largermilieu.

Spain's power as a stabilizer of the unsettled conditions of early 19th century Vieques isrevealed in the soberly Neoclassical civic and institutional buildings it built such as thelighthouses, the town hall and the Conde de Mirasol Fortress, solidly built out of technicallysimple rubble masonry, just like many other utilitarian and civic structures of the Big Island.The Fortress, for years seat of government, prison, and an abandoned ruine before theInstitute of Puerto Rican Culture saved it by making it a museum and center for outreach

and conservation of Vieques's history and culture.

The suitably military-solidFortress overlooks the port ofIsabel Segunda; the buildingmade out of rubble masonry andazotea (near-flat brick) roofsplaced on bulletwood purlins,opens up to the breezes withwooden-board doors andwindows within brick-reinforcedopenings. Though as such is is

typical mid-nineteenth centurySpanish institutional building, itis of impressive quality. Theoutside earth-filled walls that givethe place its fortress sobriquet,are not unassailable castle walls, rather a means to mold the shape of the hill and prepare theplatform to raise the main building inside.

8/9/2019 The Importance of Cultural Heritage in Vieques Island

2/8

2

The town, called IsabelSegunda after the reigningSpanish queen at the time, is

above all a collection ofdiverse architecturalinfluences in a Caribbeanisland harbor town, thehouses sporting wideverandas and frames of nativewoods; still proud survivorsof the modern anonymity thatsurrounds them. Some streetsleading to the harbor arewide, with the pretension of

being small boulevards; they are still venues for much commercial activity. The main square

is not just a place to linger: beneath it there are the remains of a large rainwater cistern thatwas the town's major supply until more modern aqueducts were built. Facing the square youmay see the institutional-neoclassical schools built up in the early 20th century, but stillfollowing traditional design elements, including wide pediments, facade symmetry andclassrooms on either side of their entryways.

Near the square still remainsome of the more importantresidences of the town, afew on high brick plinthsbut most of them curiously

hardly elevated above thestreet level and thus moreopen to the bustle outside.Hip roofs, more resistent tohurricane winds, arecommon and similar tothose seen in neighboringislands: a frame inspired onthat of the boats thatnavigated the interislandpassages. It's much like an

upturned boat hullconverted in a shelter forlandlubbers. The Nere Delerme house a protected historic site on Calle Bentez Guzmn7 another survivor of a modernized street permits a peek to witness the spectacular buildof such roofs.

8/9/2019 The Importance of Cultural Heritage in Vieques Island

3/8

3

The Delerme Anduze house in the very visible juncture of Muoz Rivera and AntonioMellado Streets impresses with its imposing dormered roof (again, a Franco-Antillian trait)and its veranda, now a gallery that opens into an interior commercial space. The verandaoverhangs mix large curled-at-the-end iron bars screwed to the walls and to wooden beams;

the ensemble han proven itsworth resisting many hurricanes.

These houses alternate withsimple commercial buildings inbrick or concrete, with manydoors opening to the street,some of them roofed over withhip roofs like the houses. InVieques's traditional buildingsthere is hardly any ornamentalexuberance, they are as a rule

austere and they tend to delightmore by their excellent technicalquality in the use of wood andother materials, as well as their

proportions. The also strike an effective dialogue with the windy, maritime climate of theAntillean microislands, picking up the constant breezes, insulating from heat and directinghot air upwards, beyond the reach of the users' comfort zone.

A now-vanished house in 5Bentez Guzmn Street, withclearly English inspiration and of

a moneyed family, had acomplex hip-roof geometry,ventilating dormer, and theliving room was surfaced with amaterial known as lincrusta,essentially sawdust with linseedoil and resin, molded inornamental patterns in hardenedplates. But a house that defiestime is the Smaine house in thecorner of Antonio Mellado and

Prudencio Quiones streets.This protected house has a highbase (used as a lower story), a perceived center-hall layout, the wooden main story sheathedin pressed metal imitating brick, and an extensive ell extension known in Puerto Rico as amartillo (hammer) and the Mellado street side has a curving side stair that passes next toa cylindrical steel cisterns, common in the late 19th century. This house presents a half-

8/9/2019 The Importance of Cultural Heritage in Vieques Island

4/8

4

hipped roof similar to those in the Virgin Islands, that allows for more efficient ventilationof the roof space.

In the early 20th century, like other

Puerto Rican towns, there was adopted atype of building with imported pine andconcrete, with less pitched, bungalow-inspired hip roofs. At Isabel Segundathere's for example the Jaime Puig housein 65 de Infantera street flanked bythree other house more or less its agebut still more faithful to older forms.Buildings like the former CasaAmarilla at the corner of Muoz Riveraand Duteil streets follow, in concrete,

the concept of the high-ceilinged shop with multiple openings to the street, at the same time

presenting an interesting use of simple Doric columns and the 45-degree chamfered corner,celebrating it similar to what is seen in cities like Ponce.

Vieques's commercial andagricultural wealth was derived fromthe cultivation of cane, whichnotwithstanding the lack ofpermanent rivers and derivedirrigation problems, blanketed mostfields from Punta Arenas to PuertoDiablo, establishing thus a rural

heritage of sugar estates over all ofthe island's territory, where theproduct was artisanally cultivatedand later exported to marketsoutside the Caribbean. Vieques hadover a score of estates, with steam-or oxen-driven mills, and thewarehouses of a few exist as ruins.One of these estates of the Benitez family evolved into the large and modern PlayaGrande (Big Beach) sugarmill, only one of its kind in Vieques, exporter of most of theisland's sugar and which hosted a settlement next to the factory, which was a sort of small

town dedicated to the industrial workers of the sweet condiment.

Jos Ferreras Pagn, in his directoryBiografa de las riquezas de Puerto Rico (Biography ofPuerto Rico's Riches) published in1902 (vol. 2, p. 87) indicates that this mill, formerlyowned by Matthias Hjardemaal, was sold in 1892 to Don Jos Bentez Guzmn, being asmall factory that increased its capacity and elements until it became a steam-poweredmuscovado mill. Ferreras detailed the following components:

8/9/2019 The Importance of Cultural Heritage in Vieques Island

5/8

5

[a building] dedicated to the sugar factory and warehouse, residence for the director,employee housing, house for the foreman, store, and single workers' quarters: 5 multitubularboilers with their ovens that burn green bagasse, a Krajeuski (?) stalk cutter, 1 mill and its

second grinder with their engines, 4 eliminators, 6 defecators, 6 Fletcher centrifuges, 10decanters, 1 triple effect [evaporator], a two-bags-per-batch vacuum pan, 1 Cortada still, oneelectric generator [author's note: only five out of 32 non-American capital mills had thisthen], 30 iron tanks..

Ferreras Pagn goes on describing themill::

Its lands stretch for 4000 acres andother 1500 of Mr. J. Bentez Daz, ofwhich 3000 are suitable for canegrowing, and 1500 acres are [presently]

cultivated

It produces some 15000 bags of first-and second-harvest sugar. The formerResolucin estate in Barrio PuntaArena is annexed to this importantfactory.

Despite its atrocious dismantling in 1941, Playa Grande still presents significant remains thatdefy oblivion and abandonment.

The biographer of riches also describes the nearly vanished Santa Mara mill. This one hadbelonged to the Leguillous and also to the Le Bruns. Modernized in 1896, it had::

3 multitubular boilers with green-bagasse-fueled ovens, one mill and its engine, 4defecators, 4 eliminators, 2 clarifiers, 4 filters, 1 vacuum pan, 4 centrifuges and otheraccesory equipment: as well as iron tanks for syrup and molasses.

Its equipment was built by the Fives-Lille company in France, and they can elaborate up to220 bags in 12 hours. (Ferreras, ibid. p. 88)

Ferreras Pagn describes its buildings::

A beautiful masonry factory where all the equipment is installed along with a Deroy still,the latter which stopped being used since the promulgation of the Hollander Bill [author'snote: a law that taxed alcohols exported to the U.S.A] as sales have declined: 1 one-storyhouse for the director's residence: 4 wooden houses for employees; a brick masonryrainwater cisterns, another cisterns for storing water from a creek that flows south to north

8/9/2019 The Importance of Cultural Heritage in Vieques Island

6/8

6

near the factory, drawn by a windmill-powered pump, this for the evaporators; one store,and 11 workers' quarters.

At that time Santa Mara controlled 2000 acres, slightly over half cultivated. It operated until

de 1920's henceforth Playa Grande was the sole grinder of Vieques cane.

It is now barely a remembrance though the form of the factory settlement still influences thepresent one. Another mill, Arkadia, existed in the northwest, in the later-military zone, andaccording to some archeological field studies, parts seem to remain. It also stopped in theearly 20th century.

Sugar estate ruins in Viequesreflect the importance of thatepisode of the island's social andeconomic history. Somewarehouse walls can be found,

in some estates like Campaa inthe east there is a flair for theirfounders' French tastes, thisaccording to those that havedocumented the place, onlyhundreds of feet from thedeath zone of the formerNavy firing range. Other ruinsare more utilitarian and sober.

Some estate house have remained like the fascinating (unfortunately ruined) Frenchman'sHouse or Mourraille estate near Esperanza, formerly a very agreeable small hotel. This one

had a generous interior courtyard and very high ceilings with a center-hall plan, being theformer living room the hotel's foyer. With its hip roof, belvedere overlooking a splendidvista of land and sea, concrete walls imitating undressed stone, and huge wraparoundveranda on top of a high base, it was one of Vieques's memorable spots. Of other estatehouse some ruins remain, and the remembrances of those not entirely eliminated by Navybulldozers.

Near the entrance to Esperanzaharbor, there existed until theirdestruction by Hurricane Hugoin 1989 the enormous wall of

the Esperanza estatewarehouses. The cyclopeanmasonry and simpleproportions of this utilitarian,rectangular edifice, spoke ofsolidity of these walls thatprotected sugar during its

8/9/2019 The Importance of Cultural Heritage in Vieques Island

7/8

7

purging and curing process. However, the passage of time and uncompatible modern repairsweakened the building, setting the stage for its loss.

In the remains of the Pacience estate in Barrio Santa Mara are the remains of the tombs of

the first governor of Vieques, Thophile-Joseph-Jacques-Marie le Guillou, with massiveFrench inspired construction and a pyramidal top, a symbol of transcendence very favoredas an iconic form of European tombs. There are other vaulted tombs at its side. Some areabove earth sarcophage type, also following French custom.

This interesting agrarian past rots away in oblivion amidst the scrub, but notwithstanding theexistence of directives to preserve heritage within the military installations, most estate ruinsin former military lands are fragments of walls or floors, lime and earth between leaves andbushes not to speak of the empty shell of the Puerto Ferro lighthouse, almost standing likea ruins of a vanquished enemy awaiting their Carthage-style disappearance, not by force butby age and weather. (The other lighthouse - Punta Mulas, near the town was carefullyrestored in collaboration between the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and the Municipality,

and of late has been a museum though it is now closed.) Even so, the resistance of thesematerials come from the earth have made these walls and footings faithful defenders of thepresence of the past facing the trauma of modern and destructive military arts.

Even though there have been madearchaeological reconnaissances thatdemonstrate that these ruins andremains, historic and Pre-Columbianalike, are a very important patrimonythat are a key part of the Caribbeanjigsaw puzzle, Puerto Rican

archaeologists had not been permittedfor a long time to dig and analyzefindings in military soil. This has left agap in early Puerto Rican history,since it is known for years thatVieques was a major bridge andcontact since the time of the firsthuman migrations in this region.

Puerto Ferro Man, a most significant anthropological find, remains, thus an interestingphenomenon without (until, we hope, now) a context that explains him and his times..

Between 1978 and 1985 an American consultant group hired by the Navy made a historicresource survey in Vieques naval lands. Not informed by the knowledge or experience of ourarchaeologists and preservation architects, a collection of reports was made of these findingslocated in hills and dales of Vieques. But the lack of communication between both groupshas hampered the construction of an useful interpretation of the remains. Our people hadbeen denied for years access to a vital part of its cultural heritage, and also to the prople'sright to know themselves through history and material culture.

8/9/2019 The Importance of Cultural Heritage in Vieques Island

8/8

8

Now that many of these resources are accesible there is a need to revise the condition andsignificance of these places since they can be venues for cultural tourism and kindredactivities, now blossoming throughout many Caribbean locations in spite of many

difficulties. The cultural landscapes of the long-time inaccesible areas evidence theachievements and losses of Vieques society long subject to agricultural and later militarylatifundia. They deserve to be conserved since they define the community's personality andthey may be reused for the enjoyment and recreation of present and future generations.

jo

July 10, 2001, GuayamaRevised August 2002Second revision Dec. 2004Illustrations March 2010Translation by the author, Mar. 5, 2010, finished in Vieques

ILLUSTRATIONS (by the author except where indicated)

p. 1 Conde de Mirasol Fortressp. 2 top Urban landscape, Mellado and Muoz Rivera streets

bottomVieques Public School, 1907p. 3 top Delerme Anduze house, late 19th century, declared historic site

bottomInside of demolished house in 3 Benitez Guzman Streetp. 4 top Smaine house in Mellado and P. Quiones streets (photo not by author)

bottomYellow House now a beach and tourist goods shop at the corner of Muoz

Rivera and Victor Duteil streetsp. 5 Entrance to the Playa Grande mill ruins (source: www.panoramio.com)p. 6 top Mourraille House (1914) also known as Frenchman's House when it was a

hotel. Photo taken 1979. Original architect: Francisco Valines Cofres.Nowadays a burnt-up ruin.

BottomWarehouse of Esperanza estate, now demolished. Photo taken 1979.p.7 Puerto Ferro Lighthouse, ca. 1920 (US Coast Guard photo, photographer's name

not known).