History

Yesteryear memories that will make you feel the most intense emotions of 
 a colonial past bloom sealed inside the walls of this majestic house

Eclectic architecture with neoclassical tendency, Quinta Montes Molina is a representative construction of President Porfio Díaz rein and the great henequen boom in Yucatán. It has always been a living house, it has furniture from the different periods through which it has passed, and in it we find many details that help us to better understand the customs of the wealthy families of Merida in the beginning of the 20th. century. 
The end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a time of splendor and economic prosperity in Yucatan due to the important henequen industry, the so-called "green gold of Yucatan", in the world. Many Yucatan's landowners and merchants amassed big fortunes and built, in Merida, palaces and beautiful mansions in Europe fashionable styles. This could be seen especially on the new avenue of Paseo de Montejo. One of these rich and prosperous men was Don Aurelio Portuondo and Barceló (Havana-Cuba). He visited Merida at that time of splendor, and knew Josefa de Regil Casares, part of a distinguished family of the city, and fell in love with both.

So he married Doña Josefa and stayed in Merida. With friends and relatives, he organized a company to complete the beautiful Peon Contreras Theater, and during that, the same engineers designed and built his house, the Quinta, in the early 1900's, on the land his father-in-law had given them as wedding present. They named the house "Villa Beatriz" in memory of her firstborn daughter, who died a few years after her birth. A few years after the construction of La Quinta, due to the difficult political situation in Mexico by the Revolution, Don Aurelio, decided to return to Cuba with all his family.

The house was then bought by Mr. Avelino Montes Linaje, another dynamic and prominent businessman. Don Avelino was originally from Santander, Spain. When he turned 13, he refused to continue studying, so he was sent by his parents to Mexico, through a well-known merchant, who made him an employee of a known and family in the city of Mérida.

Starting as an auxiliary in a store, Avelino had a keen eye for business, and was able to get in on the flourishing business of henequen. While working with Don Olegario Molina Solis (Governor of Yucatan from 1902 to 1906), he married his daughter, Maria Molina Figueroa, and with her had 7 children Olegario, Alberto, Obdulia, Fernando, Josefina, Carmen and Avelino . When Don Avelino died (1956) his daughter Josefina inherited the house who always tried to maintain it as if his father still lived in her.