The RAIXA ESTATE is on the other side of the Soller tunnel. 10 minutes from Soller and you are n a beautiful old world with many years of history. Raixa has been used as film sets many times particularly for Agatha Christie movies.
This article has been written by Andrew Rawson of Mallorca Days Out and published in the Majorca Daily Bulletin today – 7th June 2015. Photographs have been taken by Andrew Rawson and more can be seen on
Raixa Estate
The Raixa estate is in the foothills of the Tramuntana Mountains, west of the Palma to Sóller road. It was part of the Arabic estate known as Biniatzar until King James the Conqueror gave it his great uncle, Nuno Sanç, following the conquest in 1229.
What we find today was created when Raixa split from its neighbour, Pastoritx estate. The first recorded owners were the Zafortesa i Tagamanents family and they built a country house so they could escape Palma. But they opposed tax rises during the Germanies war of 1521-23 and the Imperial Army burnt it down when they restored order. The family were bankrupt by 1660 and sold the estate to the first Count of Montenegro.
The rebuilt house has a three-storey Master’s House (Casa del Senyors) surrounding three sides of the courtyard (clastra). A two-storey range of worker’s accommodation and workshops occupies the fourth side. The Font des Coster stream runs through the estate but there was never enough water so a huge reservoir (aljibe) was built behind the house in the 1750s.
In 1797 the estate passed to Cardinal Don Antoni Despuig i Dameto, the third Count of Montenegro’s son. He wanted to create large ornamental gardens and the builder had to extend the reservoir to 100 metres long, making it Mallorca’s largest reservoir at the time. But the gardens still needed more water so two miles of channels were built to get more from the Pastoritx estate.
Despuig was appointed Archbishop of Seville but had to flee to Italy when he became involved in a plot to remove the Spanish Prime Minister. During his travels he bought many Roman antiquities and eventually shipped them to Mallorca to start his collection. Despuig also financed several archaeological excavations on Mallorca. He was eventually appointed advisor on Spanish affairs to Pope Pius VI and Pope Paul I made him a cardinal in 1803.
When the Cardinal died, his nephews continued his work. They developed the gardens in front of the house and they can be enjoyed from the Italian style loggia (a balcony with ornamental arches). They then developed the gardens on the hill behind the house, adding statues, steps and follies amongst the pine trees and cypresses. Finally, seven terraces were built immediately behind the house and connected by a flight of steps. The gateway east of the house was added in 1898 as a finishing touch.
The industrialist Antonio Jaume Nadal bought Raixa in 1906 was bought and he sold the Cardinal’s collection of Roman sculptures to the Museum of Mallorca. The collection of Roman antiquities can be visited today in Bellver Castle. Over the years the estate has inspired several writers, including Agatha Christie who referred to it during her novel ‘Evil under the Sun’. The local writer Llorenc Villalonga’s novel ‘Bearn’ mentions the house as does Antoni Aloy’s ‘Presence of mind’.
Raixa was declared a Cultural Heritage Site in 1993 and it was jointly bought by the National Parks Foundation and Mallorca Council in 2002. The Foundation was later absorbed into the Biodiveristy Foundation, which is part of the Spanish Ministry of Environment, and work started on the gardens when restoration work on the fabric of the house was completed in 2009.
While the gardens are a pleasure to walk around, there is still plenty of work to do on the interior of the house. The Count’s collection was never replaced and all the furnishings have been removed. But Raixa is still a fine example of a 17th Century Mallorcan manor house.
Opening times are from 10am to 5pm from Tuesday to Saturday. If you Google Raixa you will find the Council website with more information.
