HISTORY

The fertility of the volcanic land, snow-capped mountains around, its location near to the equinoctial  line and the special importance indigenous people gave to the sun’s path passing trough, made that  the  “Los Chillos Valley”  was furnished  with a net of aqueducts that allowed de corn production as source of life for man and sacred offering to their gods, the variety named Chillo, which  together with the maiz from  the surroundings of Macchuchupichu  were considered as  the best one during  the Inca’s Impire, was always used to refer this zone.

Ever since the early spanish colonial period these lands were very much valued and major haciendas of the local aristocracy developed there. The large landed states of the Marquis of Selva Alegre, the Count of Casa Jijón and various Religious Orders of the Catholique Church were stablished in the valley.

The actual house of the Hacienda San Francisco was built on the top of a hill which allows to contemplate a magnificent scenary of the “Los Chillos Valley”. It was originally conceived as a  spiritual retirement for the Franciscan monks  and Jesuites living on the southern area of Quito by the middle of the XIX century.

By the end of the XIX century the hacienda  was bought by the Bustamante Family who, beside livestock and agriculture, start with the yarn and weavings production as part of the manufacture ‘Obraje Montufar’, textile items that are commercialized in the whole Central Andean Highlands.

At the beginning of the XX century  the Velasco family acquire the property  which some years later, due to economical problems, goes to the hands of the Jijón  family who keep the tradition of the Chillos corn production but the  Land Reform of 1963 finish with the flourishing times of the hacienda and it is parceled leaving only part of it and the main house for  inheritage to one of their sons who, after several years of abandon, sell it in 1999 to the SALCEDO HERMOSA family ,actual owners of the property who inmediatly after start the renovation and “mis en valeur” of the house and its environment.

Enrique and Giovanna met in the tourism business, they both are national tour guides, art and decoration lovers and knowledgeable about different branches of the restauration, they jointed their talents and hearts to transform and give life to this beautiful house and rescue the cultural and anthropological values of the Hacienda concept