Hacienda Buena Vista, also known as Hacienda Vives (or Buena Vista Plantation in English), was a coffee plantation located in Barrio Magueyes, Ponce, Puerto Rico. The original plantation dates from the 19th century. The plantation was started by Don Salvador de Vives in 1833. The Hacienda is located on 81.79 acres (331,000 m2) of fertile land that includes a humid subtropical forest some 7 miles (11 km) north of Ponce on Route PR-123, in Corral Viejo, a subbarrio of Barrio Magueyes. The plantation house was built in the Spanish Colonial style, with the surrounding buildings being built in the local Criollo style. The original Hacienda covered 482 cuerdas (approx. 468 acres). It is now owned by the Fideicomiso de Conservación de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Conservation Trust), which operates it as a museum which it opened in 1986.
Significance
The Hacienda is significant for various reasons. First, it contains the only remaining example of the Barker hydraulic turbine, which was the first reaction type turbine ever made. It was nominated as a Mechanical Engineering landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in July 1994. The second reason Hacienda Buena Vista is significant is that it offers one of the best remaining examples of a Puerto Rican coffee plantation. This is important because in the latter part of the nineteenth century the coffee produced in Puerto Rico and exported to Europe and the United States was considered among the finest in the world. It is said to have even been the favorite at the Vatican at the time. Hacienda Buena Vista is also significant because it shows the evolution of the coffee industry in the region. Various periods can be appreciated. These range from the cultivation of produce such as plantains (1833–1845); to the production of flour (from rice and corn) (1847–1872). These products were staples for the subsistence of the local population.
Brief history Hacienda Buena Vista was started as a truck farm to produce mostly plantains, bananas, corn and avocados, by Don Salvador de Vives in 1833. De Vives was a Catalan immigrant arriving from Venezuela and he set up the farm to sell its produce in the Ponce market and in the sugarcane estates along the southern coast. Originally, the Vives estate covered 500 acres (2.0 km2). In 1845, the son of Don Salvador added a corn mill operation to the profitable fruit and vegetable production. Later, Don Salvador's grandson oversaw the addition of coffee growing and processing to the plantains and cornmeal, taking advantage of the great coffee-growing boom of the 1880s and 1890s. Don Salvador's son and grandson introduced some of the most innovative farm machinery on the island, powered by a nearby 100-foot (30 m) waterfall. Eventually Hacienda Buena Vista would become one of the most successful plantations in the mountains of Puerto Rico. A series of hurricanes and the failing coffee market brought operations at the Hacienda to a standstill by 1900, and gradually Hacienda Buena Vista fell into disrepair and was partially abandoned. By 1937 agriculture had seriously declined in Puerto Rico, and the plantation was abandoned, becoming mostly a weekend country house for the Vives heirs. Worker barracks, outbuildings and equipment deteriorated rapidly under the humid tropical climate and rainfall. In 1984, the Puerto Rico Conservation Trust bought 86 of the original 500 acres (2.0 km2), with the intention of restoring it. Despite the grave deterioration of the coffee-processing machinery and the farm buildings, the Conservation Trust managed to restore the estate so that it could be used to educate the public about the golden era of fine coffee growing in the mountains of Puerto Rico. The original owners donated many of the furnishings, and the Conservation Trust purchased other authentic pieces. Hacienda Buena Vista is today a well-known educational destination. The machinery of the original Hacienda has been put in motion again, farm animals roam the grounds, the farmhouse rooms have been furnished, and the scent of freshly roasted coffee fills the surrounding air. Visitors can take tours through the old Vives country home and explore the plantation buildings and grounds. Authentic 19th-century farm machinery is exhibited that shows how a coffee plantation worked in the 1880s.
Salvador Vives
Migration from Venezuela Salvador Vives arrived in Puerto Rico from Venezuela fleeing the struggle for independence going on in that country at the beginning of the nineteenth century. At the time he was a 12-year Spanish career officer from the province of Catalonia in Spain, who had been stationed in Caracas, until he was forced to leave after the defeat of the Spanish Army in the battle of Carabobo in 1821. It was thus that Vives traveled from Venezuela to Puerto Rico on 27 June 1821 with his wife Isabel Diaz and son Carlos. Accompanying him were also two slaves. He settled in the southern port city of Ponce, where the sugar industry was booming.
Early Puerto Rico years With no capital to buy sugarcane-growing land, Salvador Vives worked for the municipal government of Ponce during the 1820s and 1830s in assisting other displaced Spanish emigrants and also as a public notary. By 1838 he had enough money to purchase 482 acres (1.95 km2) of hilly, undeveloped, tropical forest land in barrio Magueyes, to the north of the city of Ponce, and near the Canas River. The land consisted mostly mountainous terrain with thick forest, and far from the town. Fortunately, Vives was able to purchase the lands relatively cheap for the lands in greatest demand at that time were the rich flatlands near the coast that provided the perfect conditions for the sugar-growing industry. The development of a new road in that area, PR-123, would also guarantee that products from Vives' future farm could be bought down for sale to the marketplace in Ponce with relative easy. The construction of the farm-to-market PR-123 road would prove to be a factor in the success of Vives' hacienda.
Vives’ Hacienda
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