The Corsair Amaro Pargo's house in Tenerife is falling into ruin: urgent rescue needed.
On Tenerife, the cultural landmark – the house of the corsair Amaro Pargo – is falling into disrepair, and experts are urging the authorities to save it, proposing to create a cultural center there.
The Amaro Pargo House in Tenerife, which is a cultural landmark, may disappear. This is the warning from surveying experts Ángel Adán and Beatriz García. To save the building, the owner wants to transfer it to the ownership of the Tenerife Island Council so that it can be preserved.
The house is falling into disrepair due to years of neglect, the original structures are deteriorating, and it is also being looted – valuable materials, especially wood and stone, are being extracted. There is also illegal digging in search of "treasures" that do not actually exist.
Adán and García spoke about this in the municipality and offered their plan to save the house. They say that Amaro Pargo's treasures should be sought not in the house, but in churches and monasteries, as this is part of the historical heritage of the Canary Islands.
The owner of the house has officially offered to transfer it to the council so that it can protect it, repair the ruins and make them accessible to tourists.
Experts propose creating a Center for the History of the Old Candelaria Road there. Previously, students from the University of La Laguna and writer Alfredo López Pérez also proposed this idea.
They believe that this is important because pilgrims traveling from La Laguna to Candelaria used to stop here. Since 1642, the house was used as accommodation for those who managed the island.
In 1744, the house was bought by the corsair Amaro Pargo. This became known from the book "The House of Treasures" written by historians Manuel de Paz Sánchez and Daniel García Pulido. This makes the house even more valuable.
The meeting showed photographs of the house's destruction: cracks, collapsed walls, collapsed roofs. After the death of the last resident in 1975, the house began to deteriorate rapidly.
Experts say that it is necessary to urgently save what is left, otherwise the house will disappear. They want not only to restore the ruins, but also to make this place a cultural and educational center.
"We must save a treasure that is already half-buried," says Beatriz García. "If we don't start acting now, in ten years' time this house can only be read about in the archives," warns Ángel.
They understand that this will not be easy: a lot of work, bureaucracy, money is needed, and it is important to preserve the original appearance of the building. But they hope that the Tenerife Council will take on this project together with other organizations.
Amaro Rodríguez-Felipe y Tejera Machado, known as Amaro Pargo, was born in Tenerife in 1678 and died in 1747. He was a merchant and corsair who worked for the Spanish Crown. He traded between the Canary Islands, Spain and the Caribbean, and attacked enemy ships.
Thanks to this, he became rich, bought real estate and supported the church. It is said that he helped Sister Maria de Jesus, known as the "Servant".
Legends circulate about him, but Amaro Pargo was an important figure in the history of the Canary Islands.