Our classical Hacienda style building dates probably from the 18th century and was built on part where it had a “main plaza” of the most important religious village of Purhepecha culture named Patzcuaro since the pre-Colombian epoch. Such sacred plaza contained several pyramids, stone dwellings that housed the holy men, and basins that held enormous fires dedicated to the worshipping of the God Sun.

At middle of the holy site started what later would be the Royal Road (Camino Real) which connected the main cities, some Haciendas and small villages of the named then Nueva España. Later hands carved stone blocks from the pyramids were used in colonial buildings, and can be seen today in some places in the classical Colonial architecture of the new Patzcuaro. For practical purposes, our “Hacienda” was built, next to El Camino Real in order to offer service as Meson (old inn), that is a place which gave shelter and food to tired human travelers and their animal’s companions as well . In particular it served mule drivers, the backbone of commercial interchange between the different villages of the period.

The courtyard, the largest private patio in Patzcuaro, was built to receive a lot of beasts of burden of such mule drivers and facilitate unloading and loading of the merchandise, using the long corridors around it for temporary storage purposes. In addition carpenters, blacksmiths, and other skilled craftspeople helped maintain the animals, wagons and equipment. The Meson, since the beginning, had a hand dig well to provide enough water supplies.