This beautiful 18th century Hacienda is located in the town of Aguilar de la Frontera which is close to the villages of Puente Genil and Lucena, 1.15 hours from the Malaga airport and 1.5 hours from Seville and Granada.
Its qualification as rural tourism accommodation dates from 2010.
It should be clarified that the property for sale is not the entire building that is seen in aerial photography but rather occupies the part that contains the pool, separated by a wall from the other agricultural estate. This horizontal division is clarified in the attached document, Property Plan for sale, where the object of the sale is specified as Parcela A.
The oldest data known about its construction dates from the late 18th century, although the dependencies that exist today, both the mansion and production machinery, reveal a structure from the mid-19th century.
The original building corresponds to the typical olive grove farms in the area, having a two-story structure with a large central patio, which was modified with the construction of a large swimming pool.
From its main facade, there are two entrances, one to the central patio and the other to the owners’ home. The first, as a corridor, also served to connect with the workers ‘offices and with the workers’ resting place. This is located under a large fireplace that occupies the entire width of the room.
Other items for storage are also preserved, such as jars and cupboards, all of them of great ethnographic value as these serve as knowledge of an ancient way of life. In this same space are the residences of the lordship, which have been transformed at the beginning of the 20th century.
However, it is the Oil Mill the one with the greatest interest in this cortijo. The system used in the oil mill is not the original one, since it was transformed to go from a beam press mill to a hydraulic mill, to gain a better productivity.
This rural hacienda remains as an example of the cultural heritage of oil production, operating as a oil mill until the middle of the 20th century.
The oil mill is located on the ground floor. Here you can clearly interpret the entire process of making the product, which begins with the loading of the olives from the harvest through a hopper and an endless screw that leads to the interior of the warehouse and the roller press of stone, in this case powered by hydraulic type energy, for its first grinding, later passing to another basket press from which it passes to the wells for decantation, as well as its storage in large metal drums.
This process was carried out in an industrial way, using the energy of water vapor and later the electrical energy as a force engine, being one of the first agro-industrial examples of the use of the hydraulic press, therefore belonging to a chronological phase after that of the construction of the hacienda.
All the existing machinery dates from the 19th century, when the olive grove industry was at its peak, having been carried out at La Cordobesa Foundry Companies, at Rupero Heaton in Málaga, and at Félix Martínez y Compañía, from Córdoba. The old stables were connected to the storage room where you can still see the structure of a longitudinal nave divided by semicircular arches. The stables, like the oil mill, had individual access from the work yard.
On the upper floor are located the units for the accommodation of temporary workers, in which it stands out the division of the rooms by sex and by families, which were housed in small rooms with independent access, although diaphanous due to their upper part. It preserves the original nave structure divided by large semicircular arches on pilasters, a reference to a previous storage use.
The rest of the units have been modified to a great extent for the new use, which has made it possible to publicize the existence of this example of agrarian architecture in the southern Cordovan countryside, and at the same time to promote the maintenance of the entire historical manufacturing mechanism of the oil existing there, thus spreading our cultural heritage in parallel with the research and management work that the different administrations have been carrying out.
Currently, this hacienda has a constructed area of 1,800 m², and it has been equipped with the characteristics of any modern house, with its respective comforts, facilitating accommodation for groups of a maximum of 20 people, which makes it a perfect option for celebrations between friends and family.
Its rooms, very spacious, are distributed in:
Lastly, the exterior of the house is dominated by the white of the façade, which forms a kind of rectangle within which the pool is centrally located and, around it, a lawn area equipped with sun loungers.
In addition, there is a covered barbecue area next to the pool and in which there are a series of tables with benches.
