Hacienda Teya: The Vision of a Businessman from Merida

Best selling psychologist Gail Sheehy says that by middle age you know better than  at any prior stage in life who you are, what you need, and how to get it. The question for us therefore is if we are still willing to try.

Hacienda Teya, is a well known restaurant, inn, and banquet facility on the outskirts of the Yucatan’s capital city, Merida. Reconstructed from a crumbling, 19th century ruin, the hacienda comprises several small and large party rooms, an award winning restaurant and a stunning ballroom flanking an indoor pool. It’s owner, the late Don Jorge Carlos Cárdenas Gutiérrez was ahead of his time visioning a new life for the property when he bought the ruin in 1974.

A central part of the hacienda’s current success has to do with daughter Veronica Cardenas who is the Director of Hacienda Teya. She spoke to me about the family business and in particular, her father and his mid life crisis.

“There are two remarkable things about my father. Not only was he a pioneer in Mexico’s hacienda revival boom, but he was already over 50 years old when he launched his dream,” she said.

In the 1970s, reconstructing an abandoned hacienda was unheard of despite the supply being plentiful. These grand old plantation houses had been built by landowners enriched by the export of agave, the raw material for henequen, a product used to bind wheat into sheaths. With the expansion of farming westward in nineteenth-century America, the market for henequen was huge. By the first decade of the last century, there were more than a thousand grand haciendas within an eighty mile radius of Merida. Though most of these properties fell into ruins when the industry collapsed, the dream of the golden age of the haciendados remained strong in local consciousness. So when Don Jorge decided to become a haciendado, it was possible to scoop up one of these relics for a song. Veronica remembers her father announcing his purchase. “The good news is that we are haciendados; the bad news is that we no longer have a car”.

A quarter of a century after Don Jorge’s mid life crisis, Hacienda Teya is the place for both locals and foreigners to host grand events. Touring around the grounds it’s easy to buy into the idea, marry me in Merida! Or maybe for the Mature Traveler thinking of an anniversary party, it’s re-marry me in Merida. The hacienda is classic in design, Spanish-influenced architecture, soaring arches, thick walls, heavy doors, and intricate tile floors. Each of the six guest rooms have preserved the sensual appeal of the dark wood beams set off against the high ceilings.

One of the oldest haciendas in the area, Hacienda Teya started life as a cattle ranch in 1683 then evolved into a henequen plantation and production facility two centuries later. But by the 1950s, like most of the haciendas around Merida, it was in ruins. The ceiling had collapsed. The grand entry stairs by the clock tower were rubble, understandably, given that generations of haciendados would ride their horse up to the covered porch before dismounting.

“Dad owned a small business making shelves, but once he took on the project of reconstructing the hacienda, it started taking up all of this time.”

“He first intended it to be a country club and offer shares for membership, then he changed his mind during the renovation on the ceiling. I suppose that the place grew on him, especially since he was putting so much of his own hand in fixing it up. When he decided to remain sole proprietor, he went out and planted twelve trees in a circle. These he told us, were for our children. Anyone can complete a construction job in a couple of years, but trees take a generation.”

Besides the drama of the bougainvillea lined gardens, a delight to bridal parties and their photographers, the sparkling elegance of the French inspired mirrored ballroom with a swimming pool at its center moves prospective clients to close the deal. Originally a machinery house, a gigantic hole in the floor remained when the iron scrapers and henequen thrashing equipment was removed. Jorge’s idea to fill the hole with a pool was met, like most of his ideas, with a collective, “are you crazy?” Admittedly, indoor pools in tropical Merida were as uncommon as the visionary Jorge himself.

Hacienda Teya is a bright light on the party circuit of Merida, and Jorge lived to see other luminaries such as Hilary Clinton stroll through its grounds. And while Merida’s party-goers can be thankful for Jorge’s mid life crisis, Hacienda Teya is more than an artful photographic backdrop and fine restaurant. It’s a monument to what can be accomplished when you only get started at 50 years old!