Hacienda Jaral de Berrios - State of Guanajuato, Mexico

The idea of going to the Hacienda began because a well known photographer in San Miguel has been taking groups of photographers over to photograph inside and around the hacienda.  San Miguel is a small town and news travels fast. 

My friends are not particularly interested in photography.  However, they are interested in history and architecture so when the subject came up and I said I had been there eight or ten years ago and photographed it then, they wanted to do another road trip.

Hence the previous post about being on the road.

The Hacienda is exceptional.  It was, in the 1700's, the largest hacienda in Mexico.  Not only was it the largest, but the most productive, with cattle, agricultural crops, mining nitrate for gunpowder and harvesting crops for mescal, which is still ongoing to this day.  The mescal that is........

Construction on the buildings began in 1613 when the second owner of the land, Martin Ruiz de Zavala lived there.  Interestingly, there are many Zavalas living in San Miguel.

 In 1694, Andres de Berrio married the daughter of the third owner Damaso Said Saldivar.  This man was involved in the National Bank of Mexico, was very wealthy and provided money for expeditions into Northern New Spain, as the country was called at that time.  This was the beginning of the Berrio's family ownership of the hacienda.

 As I mentioned, this haciendas lands extended from the State of Durango to the State of Mexico.  It was so successful and profitable that the owners were given the title of Marquis!

 Barrels cover the portico areas today with mescal that is being aged for the future bottling with the name of Jaral de Berrios.  I bought a bottle as did the others in our group.

 Let me back up a minute and tell you about the mini adventure to get in here.  We arrived to the village of mud and water and rutted streets.  I got out and yelled through the chained front doors looking for the guard.

No guard.  I told everyone to be patient that someone would show up.  Within 5 minutes a red pickup pulled in and parked in front of the doors.  Out came the watchman and his son.  I asked if it would be possible for us to go inside to see the hacienda.  That we had come a long distance.  At first he said "No".  I then said g

 we would not be long and would it be possible?  He said he had to call his jefe (boss) and it would be a few minutes.  And he did.  The owner of the property is in Mexico City and he agreed that we could go in for a short period of time.  While the others looked around on the second floor, I stayed and schmoozed the guy with my pathetic Spanish.  I asked about his family and how long he had worked here.  Things like that.

 At some point he walked over, unchained and opened the doors to the parlor that still has the stenciling and painted walls from so long ago.  It was so totally dark in there at first I could not see anything.  Then my eyes adjusted and I could take the two photographs with my handy dandy flash.  They aren't great but they do show what magnificence there was until  the late 1800's.  I was elated that those with me could see these rooms as the rest of the property is in such decay.

 The photo above is another wing of the property that I was in previously but which we did not enter the other day.  The population of the village lives on down this dirt road.

 Here are granaries and storage areas that are located across from the hacienda.  In the distance is a magnificent chapel that was built by one of the owners as a burial chapel for himself and his family.

 It was typical back in the days of the haciendas for the chapel to be connected to the hacienda so that the family could attend services privately.  This chapel is quite large and elaborate.  It had a fence around it with chain link on the gates so that it was not possible to walk any closer to see it.

Here is the chapel adjacent to the granaries so that you can see the scale of it. 

In addition, there is a lovely church to the east of the chapel.  I'll share those photos in my next post along with photos taken many years ago when I was last at the hacienda.  Again, it was common for the hacienda owner to build the church for the workers to use and the people in the village.

This hacienda is truly in the middle of no major towns or cities.  There is a train station nearby that was used back in the day, but is not used any more to get from Mexico City to Nuevo Laredo. 

There is a LOT of information and photographs on Google.com and the article that gave the most information was the magazine article from Mexico Desconocido. It is in Spanish, but can be translated into English by hitting the translate button.   I found out about the chapel both from this article and a photographer who referred to it as la Capilla Hacienda.

In the information, it also came to my attention that Dotty Vidargas Realty in San Miguel has the listing to sell the hacienda.  It could be a great destination resort!  

IF you have millions of dollars...........