Casa Vives (Vives House) is a historic building located in the Ponce Historic Zone in Ponce, Puerto Rico, across from the Plaza de Mercado de Ponce. The home was designed by Juan Bertoli Calderoni for Carlos Vives, a prominent local merchant and owner of Hacienda Buena Vista, and built by Carlos Milan.Roberto Escribano. La Casa Vives (April 2014) in, Ponce Abre Sus Puertas. Plataforma de Conservacion y Preservacion Adaptativa, Escuela de Arquitectura de la Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Puerto Rico. Supported by the Government of the Municipality of Ponce, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, and Colegio de Arquitectos y Arquitectos Paisajistas de Puerto Rico. 26 April 2014. The home was built in 1860, in the neoclassical style, making it one of the first brick and mortar homes built in the city. It was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on 13 February 2013. Architecturally, Casa Vives retains all seven aspects of integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Page 3. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
Introduction Casa Vives is a two-story, L-shaped brick and masonry building located at 88 Paseo Atocha, corner of Castillo Street, two blocks north from the town's main plaza in the traditional urban center in the municipality of Ponce. The flatroofed with parapet structure was built in 1860 in the Neoclassical tradition. The residence occupies a lot of 1,174 square meters. Believed, by the Puerto Rico Office of Historic Preservation, to have been designed by local architect Juan Bertoli Calderoni and built by Carlos Milan, Casa Vives's elegance, details, materials and quality of craftsmanship, is one of the best preserved 19th century houses in the island. The building epitomizes the quintessential architecture associated with the 19th century upper classes that projected their class vision upon the built landscape of the major urban centers in the island, being the city of Ponce its best example.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
Location and purpose Casa Vives sits in a very prominent corner lot, with its residential entrance facing Atocha Street, the main commercial artery within the traditional urban core. The longitudinal axis of the building's elevation faces Castillo Street, another important commercial artery, across from the 19th century Plaza del Mercado building. The Neoclassical Casa Vives building has a dominating presence within the area.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Page 3. Retrieved 19 December 2013. During the second half of the 19th century, the construction period of Casa Vives, the city's well-to-do citizens shaped the urban center in many ways, one of these being through its architecture, one of the most enduring means. This urban bourgeoisie competed for social status and public recognition using architecture to express their personal achievement and social aspirations. Their residences became social statements that ultimately differentiated Ponce's architecture from any other urban center in the Island, and ultimately created the unique and internationally recognized Ponce Creole architectural style. In contrast to Old San Juan, for example, whose residential architecture materialized through the repetitious application of an anonymous facade representing the official establishment's homogeneous parameters, Ponce's urban center developed around individual buildings where each family strove to impress through the built landscape their individuality. The social discourse of Ponce's urban center facades created an urban element based, contrary to Old San Juan, not on homogeneity but on its diversity. Sociologist Angel Quintero Rivera has suggested that the elaboration of Ponce's residential urban center facades manifest a cultural character associated to a Manorial worldview, where the patrician families, upon their "generosity", perceived their residence as a gift to the public and a way to embellish and dignify their city.Angel G. Quintero Rivera. Patricios y plebeyos: burgueses, hacendados, artesanos y obreros. Las relaciones de clase en el Puerto Rico de cambio de siglo. San Juan: Ediciones Huracan, 1988, p.55. In Puerto Rico, Casa Vives is considered one of the best remaining examples of homes in this social context.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Page 8. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
Design description Due to its dual commercial and residential purpose, the building's facade design received a different treatment than those of most other homes of the time. Thus, in the first level, the neoclassical elements are austere; the exterior is articulated by the doors and windows openings. These openings are framed by moldings and pilasters resembling Tuscan columns. The pilasters are crowned by an unadorned, flat architrave that runs along the entire facade, clearly dividing the commercial first floor from the residential upper level.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Page 3. Retrieved 19 December 2013. The second level received a more complex treatment, to emphasize its residential and, thus, social significance. The upper level facade is completely articulated around its many openings. There are 13 sets of wooden double doors with adjustable louvers, nine facing Calle Castillo and four overlooking Paseo Atocha. Each doorway is accentuated by a combination of balconies, plaster moldings and pediments, all framed by a rhythmic articulation of Corinthian pilasters. The balconies have the original 19th century wrought iron grilles. The facade is crowned with a sober, but strong entablature. The Tuscan and Corinthian pilaster accent the building vertically, against its massive and dominating horizontal facade.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Page 3. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
Commercial first floor The building's lower level has been historically used for commercial purposes. As a corner lot, the first floor L-elevation has one square-shaped volume facing west towards Paseo Atocha, while the other two commercial spaces occupy the longitudinal axis that runs east-to-west along Castillo Street. The commercial spaces are of different sizes. In all three sections, the original floors were replaced with native tiles, product of an early 20th century intervention. The 12-foot high ceiling in the square-shaped section is covered with pressed tin panels, a decorative addition very frequently used during the 1920s among the upper class' residences and social/civic buildings in different cities in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, the 17-foot high ceiling in the other two commercial areas have kept the original exposed ausubo (manilkara bidentata tree) beams, sustaining the pichipenPichipen is a native Puerto Rican tree with wood that is similar to oak and thus very hard. The word pichipen, is said to be an Anglicism derived from sound conversion of the term "pitch pine". See Diana Lopez Sotomayor. NRHP Registration Form: "Edificio Municipal de la Playa de Ponce." Registration No. 13000639. p. 9. rafters, which support three layers of thin bricks that make-up the foundation for the upper-level floor. Throughout the entire first floor's interior, the stucco has been removed, leaving the brick walls completely exposed. Each commercial section has its own service room. The 110'-5" long longitudinal elevation that faces Castillo Street has a very public exposure with four large clear glass windows and an equal number of clear-glass-metal-framed doors. The axis that faces Paseo Atocha has an additional glass door and two large glass windows. All three spaces at the first floor have access to a narrow backyard limited by a seven-foot high brick and masonry wall, which runs east-to-west, and separates the commercial space, physically and visually, from a large open garden-like interior patio only accessible to the upper-level residents. The Castillo Street axis has, on its eastern end, an arched wooden gate, that provide access to the cochera (carport), which by the time Casa Vives was built in the 1860s, served to properly house the family's horse stagecoach, and later, during the early twentieth century, housed the Ford's model T's and Model A's.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Page 4. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
Residential second floor The residential second-story is accessed thorough an original double-door wooden gate facing Paseo Atocha. Beyond the entrance, an imposing zaguan (hallway), with a 17-foot high ceiling with exposed beams and rafters, and richly stenciled decorated walls, surprised the visitor. Midpoint in the zaguan, a Roman arch, painted to simulated marble, creates a transition point and serves to visually frame a magnificent eight risers, bronze handrails, marble flared stair. At the stair's landing, there are two identical richly crafted iron grilled gates. One guards the entrance to the second floor, while the other one does the same to and from the patio. At the gate's upper portion that faces the zaguan, within a golden painted circle, the metal is curved to form the letters CV, the initials of Carlos Vives, the 1860s owner of the house. A northerly left turn at the landing guides the visitor into a marble straight staircase with bronze handrails, up to the second floor.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Page 4. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
In the second level, the living quarters consist of 15 rooms divided among sleeping quarters, living room, antesala, dining room, kitchen (with an original 19th century stove), bathroom and studio/library. The layout responds to the L-shaped arrangement. A massive rectangular volume, divided in three spacious rooms with 15-foot high ceilings, faces west overseeing Paseo Atocha. The bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and dining room are lined-up along the longitudinal axis, facing north overlooking Calle Castillo. This section of the quarters, the most private section of the house, also faces south, towards the interior courtyard. The entrance to each room in the longitudinal axis is accentuated by the use of a classical pediment framing each doorway. Each room facing the patio, with the exception of the dining room at the eastern end, has a distinguishable feature of a double door system. First a double wooden door with adjustable louvers, crowned with a wooden fixed transom with frosted glass panel. Another solid mahogany double door is added, which covers the entire doorway.NRHP Registration Form. Carlos A. Rubio Cancela. Puerto Rico Office of Historical Preservation. Page 5. Retrieved 19 December 2013.