Fun, Flowers and Friends
Celebrating our friend Heidi’s Birthday by exploring Lares and a variety of Haciendas!
Hacienda Lealtad
Hacienda Los Eucaliptos
Hacienda Pons
Mirador Mariana Bracetti
Lares from above
Hacienda Pons
Festival de la China Dulce -Las Marias
Festival de la China
More around the farm and our area
This week for our adventure we headed to Lares. I had heard about a beautiful place that I just had to check out: La Rambla, also known as The Levy Mansion. There are so many legends and stories about this place, but some consensus says that it was at one point in time going to be a hotel/casino, but then became the island’s first bottled water company because of the sweet spring water that came from a blessed source: La Santa Rosa spring. But there is much more to this story, from a wonderful start to complete abandonment. What happened exactly is unclear, but there are some theories including the violent death of a beloved daughter.
At the Famous Original Lares Heladeria
We started our journey traveling with our friend Anthony from Rincon to the Lares Plaza where we stopped in at the Famous Lares Heladeria. It had been MANY years since we stopped in there, but not a whole lot had changed except, that a copy-cat shop opened up just a few doors down selling the strange concoction (rice and bean, garlic, sausage flavor among others) ice creams as well!
With friends at the new El Grito Heladeria also
Fun with friends in Lares!
Then we rambled on down to La Rambla. Even though it is marked as “No Trespassing” we asked around downtown and they said there was a boquete in the fence that everyone uses and no one cares as long as you are respectful of the area. So we walked from downtown a couple of blocks and spotted the beautiful mansion from the road.
Details of the house
The mansion and grounds were themselves amazing, but the area over the spring was something altogether magical! It was a great place for a photoshoot and I am glad I brought along a skirt to add a little elegance to the photos and to honor what an amazing place it is!
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(these two awesome photos above thanks to Anthony Perez)
Finally afterward, we met up with more friends drove up the hills and checked out the Cafe Lareño factory. It was not officially open to customers, but we met the very nice owner, Don Luis Alcover who showed us around and let us eat and drink a picnic lunch at his place. It was very interesting to see that much of the coffee doesn’t come from Puerto Rico, but rather Mexico! It is depulped, roasted, ground and packaged in Puerto Rico mainly. There were some premium bags of purely Puerto Rican coffee, but not many. I hope that the Puerto Rican coffee industry is able to get stronger and stronger over time.
With my friend Berkley and the owner of Cafe Lareño, Luis Alcover
In the rest area below the newly opened coffee shop (that was closed but available to us courtesy the owner)
A beautiful tour of the coffee grounds (haha pun intended)!
A wonderful day in Lares, Puerto Rico!
Check out the video for more about La Rambla and our awesome day!
View of the property
Well we saw that the Lares, Puerto Rico property was back up and listed for sale online. The price had gone up in the listing by $15,000. We had gotten our deposit back after a year + of waiting on the title. She was free to try and sell it to another buyer and we are free to look around again. So it was not a bad thing at all to see it listed.
I decided to call Alwilda just to see how things were going. I asked her how the title was coming along? She replied “I have sold the property”. I was kind of surprised, but knowing how badly she wants to move I was happy for her. “Bien! Bien!” I said, “When will you be able to move?”. She said that she is selling the property in June to some Canadians.
There are a few things that struck me odd about that.
I’ve looked up lots of information over this last year and its kind of hard to pin down, but I don’t believe she can sell the property until it is listed in the title registry. I’ve seen information online that even says that a notary has to sign for the deed and the first thing they have to do is verify is that the title is properly filed in the registry. This one isn’t listed, which is why we couldn’t buy it. Carlos (her lawyer & also a notary AND ex-son in-law) kept telling us that if we paid with cash, then we would be able to buy the property…Yeah….right. I have a bridge to sell you.
The other odd thing is that she is selling it in June which means to me she hasn’t sold it. Maybe they are looking into it the same as Cassie and I did? To visit and make a decision.
I don’t know the people that are buying the property but if they are reading this (they might stumble across this), be careful. There are some odd laws in the books down there. William is the one who owned the entire plot broke off and sold the 25 acres to Alwilda. William has children who may have legal right to the land when he dies (Spanish inheritance laws). When we applied for the loan thru the bank, the bank was saying “no way” due to the title issues. Some of the best advice I received from a realtor was to go thru the big well known institutions and reputable places. They are protecting themselves in the deal and as a result you get that protection. Which is why even if you have cash to buy something outright its not always the best route. You lose a lot of protection so you better be sure you know what you’re doing. That’s my opinion anyway.
Estrella, Alwilda and me, plus Pirulo (the dog)
It’s a beauitful property deep in the mountains of Lares and if we could have bought it legit, I think we would have. However, I think we are just going to look for a place closer to the beaches and wish Alwida the best of luck. We do feel like we kind of missed out, but it is probably for the best for both parties. We will continue to stay in touch with her and visit when we are in Puerto Rico next.