Casa Wiechers-Villaronga facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Villaronga House
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Casa Wiechers-Villaronga
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 Location in Puerto Rico
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| Location | 106 Reina St. (NW corner of Reina and Mendez Vigo streets), Ponce, Puerto Rico |
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| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1912 |
| Architect | Alfredo B. Wiechers |
| Architectural style | Classical Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 84003151 |
| Added to NRHP | 24 August 1984 |
The Casa Wiechers-Villaronga is a beautiful old house in Ponce, Puerto Rico. It was built a long time ago, in the early 1900s. This house is a great example of the Classical Revival style.
Today, the house is owned by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. They have fixed it up, and now it is a museum! It is called the Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, which means the Museum of Ponce Architecture. You can find this special house in the Ponce Historic Zone. It is one of only two houses still standing that were designed by Alfredo B. Wiechers. He was a very important architect for Ponce.
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Why This House Is Special
The Wiechers-Villaronga Residence was built in 1912. It was designed by Alfredo B. Wiechers, who was an architect. He built it as his own home and office. Later, he sold it to Mr. Julio Mercado. Mr. Mercado then gave it to his daughter, Elena Mercado, and her husband, Gabriel Villaronga, as a wedding gift.
About the Architect
Alfredo B. Wiechers was born in Ponce. He went to the School of Architecture in Paris, France, in 1901. He was very good at his studies and even won a gold medal! After graduating in 1905, he worked with a famous Spanish architect named Enric Sagnier in Barcelona, Spain.
In 1911, Wiechers decided to come back to Ponce. He designed and built his own house and opened his studio in 1912. For a short time, from 1911 to 1918, Wiechers designed many important buildings in Ponce. These included the Loggia Aurora, Club Deportivo de Damas, the Havana Theatre, the Banco of Ponce Building, and Santo Asilo de Damas Hospital. He used the European Neo-Classical style that he learned from Enric Sagnier.
Neo-Classical Style
You can see the Neo-Classical style in most of Wiechers' buildings. It is very clear in the Villaronga residence. This house has many rich and fancy details. These include pilasters (flat columns), rough stone bases, cornices (decorative tops), and Ionic capitals (tops of columns). These details show the Neo-Classical style.
The Villaronga Residence is a great example of this style. It is one of only two houses left that Wiechers designed. This makes it very important to the history and culture of Ponce.
Original Furniture
A cool fact about this house is that all the furniture is original! Even the bathroom parts are from when the house was first built. Most of the furniture is in the Modernisme style, which is a type of Art Nouveau from Spain. It was brought all the way from Barcelona, Spain. The hanging tapestries (wall hangings) were painted by Librado Net.
House History
The house was designed in 1911 by Alfredo Wiechers. It was built in the same year by Elías Concepción Albizu. In 1918, the Villaronga Mercado family bought the house. The house was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It was listed as the Villaronga House.
House Design
This house is like a "treasure trove of culture." It is a beautiful old mansion that has been saved and turned into a museum. The building has many fancy Neo-Classical details. It also has a grand gazebo on the roof. Inside, you can see all the original, custom-made Catalan modernist furniture. Even the old shower and bathroom parts are still there and look great.
What the House Looks Like
The Wiechers-Villaronga Residence is shaped like a "U". It has one story and is about 68 feet wide and 95 feet long. It is located at the corner of Reina and Mendez Vigo Streets. The house has a lot of fancy decorations with European Baroque influences. But at its heart, it is a Neo-Classic style building. This mix creates a unique and elegant look.
The building sits on a base of rough stone. Its main walls are made of brick. Some inside walls, like those in the gallery and kitchen, are made of wood. Wooden beams hold up a galvanized zinc roof. The windows and doors are made of wood. They have movable louvers (slats) and colorful glass parts.
The floors are made of different materials. There are native cement tiles in the dining area and entrance. The living room and bedrooms have wood floors. The bathroom has ceramic tiles, and the entryway has marble tiles.
Special Details
The rounded corners of the building show the Baroque influence. This is a common style for houses in Ponce. The corner has two rough stone pilasters. It is divided into three sections by flat pilasters. Each section has a wooden window with glass parts and a flower design above it. The rest of the wall has flower garlands.
The corner also has a round sitting area called a "glorieta." It has Ionic columns. The balconies are also interesting. They are divided into three parts with Ionic columns. They have Baroque moldings and carved faces. The iron railings on the balconies are in the Art Nouveau style. The outside walls are topped with a continuous stone cornice. Above this, a battlement-type parapet with carved lion faces and "candelabra" decorations makes the roof line look special.
The main entrance is on Reina Street. It is not in the very middle of the house. The entrance hall has carved tiles. The door is at the end of a marble staircase. The inside of the house is very well kept and looks almost the same as it did originally. The rooms are painted in different colors. The walls have a decorative plastered Art-Nouveau frieze (a band of decoration). Most ceilings have decorated embossed tin with a continuous molding.
The gallery and part of the kitchen walls are wooden. They have fixed wood louvered windows for good air flow and light. Other cool details include the bathroom parts, like the shower stall and ceramic wall tiles. These were brought from Barcelona, Spain. The light fixtures in the dining room, master bedroom, and living room also came from Spain. There is also a "medio punto" in the dining area. This is a special architectural feature common in Southern Puerto Rico.
The Original Owner
Alfredo Wiechers Pieretti designed this house himself. His father was a German colonist, and his mother was Corsican. He was born in Ponce and studied in Paris. He lived in Barcelona for six years and worked in a famous studio.
Wiechers designed many buildings in Ponce, like Casa Serralles (1911) and Casa Oppenheimer (1913). He sold this house to the Villaronga family and moved to Barcelona in 1919. He designed hotels, stores, tombs, and even factories between 1911 and 1918. Most of his work was in Ponce. He only designed two buildings outside Ponce for rich Catalan families in the nearby mountain towns of Adjuntas and Aibonito.
The house was bought by Don Julio Mercado. He was the father of Helena Mercado. He gave the house to Helena Mercado as a wedding gift when she married Mr. Villaronga. This fact comes from Luis R. Mercado, who is a great-grandchild of Julio Mercado.
Restoring the House
The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP) fixed up the house in the early 1990s. Now, it is open as the Museum of Puerto Rican Architecture. All the furniture is original. It tells a story about how people lived in Ponce in the early 1900s. The different rooms in the house show you different parts of Ponce's architecture.
The Museum Today
The museum opened in 1996. Its goal is to show off Ponce's rich architectural history. The building is seen as a "gem of fine Art Nouveau from a bygone era." It has many displays and photos of amazing works. These include designs by Blas Silva Boucher, Francisco Porrata Doria, Alfredo Wiechers Pieretti, and other important local architects from the early 20th century.
Ponce is sometimes called the "guardian of Puerto Rican criollismo." It was chosen to be part of the Art Nouveau Route of the European Union. This is because it has done a great job of saving its modernist heritage.
See also
