A LITTLE HISTORY

    The Cortijo del Pino was built following the traditional architectural style of the 19th century. It is situated in the Granada vega, only 3 km from the city.

     The Granada Vega (fertile plains and meadows) is a specially protected agricultural area. It extends from the west side of the city and occupies the entire Genil river basin. Over the years, this fertile land has had an important connection with the city in terms of its agricultural activity, which has enabled it to preserve its very special functional and landscape identity.

    The Cortijo del Pino has always been a farmhouse which has adapted to the agricultural changes which the Granada vega has undergone. Linen, hemp and beet used to be grown here at the end of the last century due to the proliferation of sugar refineries, but nowadays, it is mainly used for the cultivation of asparagus, tobacco and vegetables.

    The first deeds of this estate were drawn up in Arabic and we know that it was a conferment that the Catholic monarchs made to one of their twenty-four knights who took part in the Reconquest of the Kingdom of Granada.

    The building is a lot later and dates from the year 1873. The house has two floors and a tower with a dovecot, built around a central courtyard with stone columns, with its water cistern, and agricultural buildings. At the time of the tobacco boom, several drying sheds were built.

     It is surrounded by trees which include some hundred-year-old lime trees, palm trees, oriental plane trees and above all a massive silver fir.

     In 1922, the well of the Cortijo del Pino was built. This is a large open well with a 30 m interior staircase and which was used to irrigate a large part of the vega.

     At present, the land which belonged to Cortijo and building are no longer in the hands of the same owners. Consecutive inheritances and subsequent sales of the property has meant that the use of the Cortijo has changed. Rural tourism seemed to us to be a good way of maintaining the building, as well as preserving the value of the traditional architecture of the Granada vega, an architectural form which has almost completely disappeared, with a cultural heritage that deserves to be preserved. 

     For the moment the ground floor of the Cortijo has been renovated, and two rural houses have been restored: the Casa de los Atrojes and the Casa de los Naranjos, which face west and south respectively. Both houses look out onto the central courtyard with its columns but with independent outside entrances from the garden. The family which owns the property live on the first floor.