The Consejería de Fomento, Articulación del Territorio y Vivienda has awarded more than five million euros (5,023,809 euros) for the comprehensive rehabilitation of the Casa de los Aragones de Monachil, a historic 15th-century building and a unique testimony to the manorial hamlets of the Granada municipality. These works will restore the splendor to this building, with conservation tasks and the provision of new equipment to centralize the economic, social, and cultural activity of Monachil.
The Minister of Development, Rocío Díaz, has stated that with this rehabilitation, it is evident «the commitment of the Andalusian Government to put an end to 15 years of waiting to act on this emblematic building that is part of Monachil’s history.» The Minister of Development has praised «the uniqueness of a unique building, linked to water and located between two rivers, which were the ones that originally justified its location, as it was originally an oil mill.»
The company that will carry out the works is the UTE formed by Construcciones Serrot and Actua Infraestructuras – co-financed with European Union funds (Feder) – which will be carried out on an area of 1,240 square meters. First, the dampness in the roof will be eliminated, the floor will be repaired, which is sunken on the first floor, and the structure of the buildings will be improved.
The rehabilitation work will preserve unique spaces such as the main facade, the configuration of the building in two courtyards with their vertical supports and floors, the main staircase, and the fountain of the main courtyard of the Manor House, the neo-Mudejar decoration of the 19th-century mill, and the cobbled pavement of the Olivar estate and the two courtyards. In turn, the witness elements of the different oil extraction processes will be recovered.
The rehabilitation project aims to give a new life to the building that will centralize the economic, social, and cultural activity of Monachil. In this way, an exhibition-tourism space is proposed, with a showroom of 200 square meters, a tourist office, and a ticket office. The Casa de los Aragones will also have institutional facilities: a plenary hall, a municipal archive, a library, and a public events hall. Finally, space will be provided for the promotion of entrepreneurship and economic activity, with an area of 520 square meters reserved for a business incubator.
The Casa de los Aragones is located in the heart of the town of Monachil. Built on the river terraces of the river slopes and located on the southern bank of the valley, local historiography agrees that this building is the most important architectural heritage of the Granada town, a unique testimony of the manorial hamlets of Monachil and one of the few examples of an olive estate typology in the province of Granada.
Located on an isolated plot surrounded by gardens, it is the result of the annexation over time of two differentiated buildings. The oldest one is original from the year 1450, rebuilt later in the 16th century by its owner Alonso de Venegas and his wife Brianda, a wealthy couple of converts, whose names are among the first settlers of Monachil after the fall of the Nasrid kingdom.
The most recent building, called Casa Grande, was built in 1780, attached to the first building and improved, whose owner was José Pedro Pérez Valiente, a descendant of Alonso Venegas, to whom King Carlos III had granted the Majorat of the lands and all the slopes of the mountain range. At the beginning of the 20th century, the house became the property of the Aragón family until it was sold to the City Council in 2004. The building was listed in the General Catalog of Andalusian Historical Heritage under general categorization. In addition, by law, the shields and emblems are considered Cultural Interest Assets (BIC).
The recovery of the Casa de los Aragones has been reactivated thanks to a collaboration agreement signed in early 2024 between the Minister of Development, Rocío Díaz, and the Mayor of Monachil, José Morales. The Junta de Andalucía committed to financing 80% of the actions, while the City Council contributed the rest. This initiative dates back to November 2009 when the framework agreement was closed to incorporate this initiative into the Program for the Rehabilitation of Architectural Heritage of Interest of the Consejería. However, it wasn’t until the last legislature when the Andalusian Government resumed the action with the drafting of the project with a budget of 387,200 euros.