Juan Ponce de León Residence | Casa Blanca

res­i­den­cia-de-juan-ponce-de-leon-la-casa-blan­ca

Casa Blanca. Click on image to see it larger.

Casa Blan­ca. Click on image to see it larger.

A few steps fur­ther up the street from Euge­nio María de Hos­tos Square you’ll arrive at the old­est con­tin­u­ous­ly occu­pied res­i­dence in the West­ern Hemi­sphere.  In 1521, the Span­ish colo­nial gov­ern­ment start­ed con­struc­tion of the “Casa Blan­ca” or white house to be the offi­cial res­i­dence of gov­er­nor Juan Ponce de León and the Island’s first stone fort.

The gov­er­nor died that same year in Cuba, after being mor­tal­ly wound­ed while attempt­ing to estab­lish a colony near the Caloosa­hatch­ee riv­er in Flori­da.  The Ponce de León fam­i­ly occu­pied La Casa Blan­ca for over 250 years until the Span­ish mil­i­tary took over the facil­i­ties in 1779.  After the US inva­sion in 1998, the Casa Blan­ca became the offi­cial res­i­dence of the US Mil­i­tary Com­man­ders until it was returned to the peo­ple of Puer­to Rico in 1966.

Two stone lions and the family’s coat of arms over the mas­sive wood­en doors adorn the entrance to this beau­ti­ful build­ing.  The white stuc­co dwelling is com­prised of a foy­er, study, two bed­rooms, a din­ing room, kitchen, ora­to­rio, gar­den, orchard, and a spe­cial throne room for receiv­ing roy­al visits.

Today the com­plex serves as a Nation­al His­toric Mon­u­ment and hous­es a muse­um about life on the Island dur­ing the 16th, 17th and 18th Cen­turies.  Each room is dec­o­rat­ed using antique Span­ish fur­ni­ture to rep­re­sent the building’s dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal peri­ods as authen­ti­cal­ly as pos­si­ble.  The Casa Blan­ca grounds are present­ly under­go­ing an exten­sive restora­tion to return them to the lus­cious gar­den atmos­phere that char­ac­ter­ized them for cen­turies.  One spe­cial fea­ture is the gar­den foun­tain, which was inspired on the famous Alham­bra cas­tle in Grana­da, Spain.

La Casa Blan­ca is locat­ed at 1 Calle San Sebastián, one of the most famous streets in Old San Juan, and its open to the pub­lic Wednes­days thru Sun­day, from 8:30 in the morn­ing to 4:30 in the after­noon.  Tours are avail­able by appoint­ment at a nom­i­nal cost of $5 for adults and $3 for chil­dren, stu­dents and seniors.  For infor­ma­tion, please cal 787–725-1454.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

4 thoughts on “Juan Ponce de León Residence | Casa Blanca”

  1. Good after­noon
    My wife Kate Gar­cia Rouh and I are artists in Jack­sonville, FL as RouxArt, Inc. We are doing research for a pro­pos­al to the city Cul­tur­al Coun­cil. Can you con­firm the offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized Coat of Arms award­ed to Juan Ponce de Leon by King Fer­di­nand and Queen Isabela fol­low­ing his appoint­ment as gov­er­nor of Puer­to Rico about 1513? Can you direct me to a pic­ture or design sketch? Respect­ful­ly and very appre­cia­tive, Ken­ny Rouh

    1. This is some­thing that you might want to take up with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Puer­to Rico Tourism Com­pa­ny. Their tele­phone num­ber is 1–800-866‑7827. Thank you for vis­it­ing Puer­to Rico by GPS.

  2. Please cor­rect the sum­ma­ry of the arti­cle that accom­pa­nied the pic­ture when repost­ing the link.
    The sum­ma­ry says Juan Ponce de León died in Flori­da but the arti­cle says he died in Cuba.
    Thank you

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