Yucatán in Pink: Casa El Pinar in Mérida

There are 5,057 m² of stories in Casa El Pinar in Mérida, waiting to be told.

An old mansion that stirs intrigue, distrust and fear behind its pastel-pink walls. Its recent listing for sale reawakened the building’s pull. Get to know it.

Casa El Pinar is in the city’s historic centre — a fitting area for the imposing buildings that await the gaze of the curious and of tourists.

Avenida Colón is one of Mérida’s oldest avenues; on it stand old mansions and buildings that tint Calle 60 with a pink nostalgia.

There, on Calle 60 at the level of Colón, Casa El Pinar has stood upright since around 1915.

Like the faded painting of an old artist, for decades Casa El Pinar sat abandoned, stirring the interest of passers-by, locals and tourists about the owner’s identity.

The house was a spectacle for everyone who passed: it was impossible to ignore its French Renaissance architecture, the lonely pink spat out by the walls and the strange draught between the bars that protect the house.

The terrifying tale of love and abandonment at Casa El Pinar

Of course there is a story of love, madness and death behind a building that reflects the wealth and output of henequen in Yucatán.

According to the house’s history, El Pinar was the entrance to the old town of Itzimná during the heyday of “green gold”, which makes it one of old Mérida’s most representative henequen mansions.

Legend has it that in that palace a young Portuguese couple lived strange events that deeply marked the essence of the mansion.

Although the event is less than 50 years old, little is known of the couple’s life beyond the story and fame the house has gained.

The city’s eyes say that the tragedy of Casa El Pinar began in 1985, when the woman was bitten by a bat and contracted rabies.

Recall that rabies — also known as hydrophobia and transmitted by dogs, bats, foxes, etc. — causes physical and mental symptoms in humans. Excess salivation, irritability and hallucinations are the most iconic.

By 1985 there was already a rabies vaccine, but the recovery rate was low compared with today’s treatments.

Desperate, and having exhausted his hope in science, the husband entrusted his beloved wife’s life to Casa El Pinar.

That is how he locked her in one of the mansion’s rooms, letting the house be the living hell of the woman he used to call “wife”.

The woman’s death was a long process that only the palace’s walls — no longer standing — could tell. Cries of anguish struck the ears of the closest neighbours. It was a time when rumours travelled faster than light, and soon the whole city was a silent witness.

After the relief of death, the widower left Casa El Pinar and the city of Mérida. The man’s fate is unknown, but it is certain that no exile was enough to forget the screams of horror the house kept repeating.

Restoration is a truce with time

Within the history of Mérida’s mansions, Casa El Pinar is one of the most mysterious because of the scarce information and the ravages of abandonment.

We suggest: 5 old mansions of old Mérida.

According to the Yucatán Library, through Mérida en la Historia, Casa El Pinar belonged to Miguel Peón Casares in 1906. However, the site’s official page dates its construction to 1915.

Other sources speculate that Humberto Perón owned Casa El Pinar and kept it in total oblivion until it was acquired by Alberto Bulnes Guedea.

Bulnes Guedea set out to restore the old mansion’s soul and healed the details and corners of the house until it came back to life.

Finally, the property was sold to the Molina family. José Trinidad Molina and his wife managed to give it the sense of home the pink mansion on the mythical Calle 60 had begged for over so many years.

New hope for Casa El Pinar

Recently, Casa El Pinar opened its doors to the public, satisfying the curiosity of thousands of Yucatecans and tourists who had waited years to see its most intimate foundations.

On the guided tours you can book through its website, you’ll find each of the house’s rooms furnished in detail, according to the European luxuries of life in Yucatán.

Colours in Yucatán are part of the language of place, a way to communicate with us. Yucatán in pink can be a salt flat in Las Coloradas, and also a house full of ghosts like Casa El Pinar.

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