The Great House in Maracas Valley

The best kept secret in Trinidad — according to Anna Mahase — is a secret no longer. After years of neglect the historic Great House of the Ortinola Estate in Maracas/St Joseph Valley, off Acono Road, has been rescued and lovingly restored by the new owners, Russell and Vindra Nath.

The photographs of the Great House as it was when the Naths bought the Ortinola Estate and as it looks today tell only part of the story of restoration that took two years and two months to complete, from start to finish. Russell and Vindra were determined to preserve the original structure, the materials that had stood the test of time, yet no one knows how long that testing time was, or when the Great House was built. Records show a Mr C Rigaul owned the estate in 1832; in 1835 Cipriano Cipriani claimed compensation for the 36 slaves on Ortinola Estate who were freed by the Emancipation Act of 1834 — however, there were no references to the Great House in the records of that time.

The estate began to thrive with the cocoa boom in the latter part of the 19th century. It was in 1880, or thereabouts, when C Tennant & Company bought the estate and leased it to Cadbury’s that, according to records now in Bourneville, UK, “renovated the existing Great House for their manager, Mr J P Bain.” C Tennant & Company owned the estate until 1960 when it was sold to a local company, Ortinola Estates Limited. For the next 38 years the Great House was left to watchmen and caretakers while buffalypso grazed on nine acres of rolling green fields around the estate house.

The Naths had no immediate thoughts of restoring the Great House when they bought Ortinola Estate in ’98. Russell is an attorney, Vindra an insurance executive; their aim was to grow timber — mahogany, teak and cedar — on burned areas of the 365 acre estate. To date they have planted 15,000 trees and have 20 acres in a mixed plantation of fruit trees, citrus, avocadoes, etc. Trees, even fruit trees, take time to grow. Then it was that the Naths saw the potential in the Great House itself. At first the mere idea of restoring the house after four decades of neglect seemed a daunting prospect. On closer inspection they found that, apart from some water damage where the roof leaked, much of the timber was quite sound. The old pitch-pine floor proved impervious to termites, so, too, the mahogany and cedar of the walls and the rafters. They reckoned that, being so close to Port-of-Spain and the E-W corridor, Ortinola is ideally situated for use as a retreat house, a conference centre, a site for seminars and celebrations, for quiet garden weddings. And so the work of reconstruction began.

Day after day a small specialist team of woodworkers sanded away decades of grime and paint and replaced any timbers spoiled by water damage with tough, termite-resistant greenheart, or mahogany, or cedar (in fact almost all the flooring of the gallery needed replacing). Termite treatment and fresh coats of varnish and paint completed work on the timbers. Many of the decorative railings along the gallery, the trim around the roof, the finials needed replacing. The old rusted galvanise was removed and replaced with a new roof to keep the interior snug and dry. The high ceilings, the Dominican louvred shutters and reproduction furniture (the Morris chairs in the gallery are exact copies of the one and only chair found in situ) maintain the architectural style of colonial times. The old kitchen is now one of the conference rooms, the other can also be used as a dining room; both conference rooms are air-conditioned, with the latest equipment for audio-visual presentations and facilities for fax and e-mail. There is no catering staff but the “new” kitchen that was once a store room, is fully equipped with ranges, freezers, sinks, etc, for use by outside caterers.

The nine acres of rolling grassland are available for use by clubs and business for family and sports days. The Naths’ plans don’t end with conferences, weddings and the like. They hope to expand beyond the Great House to develop nature trails and accommodation across the Acono river for eco tourists. They intend to convert a small labourer’s cottage in the grounds not far from the Great House to a small cafe serving teas. When Sunday Newsday visited Ortinola on January 22 with the Nath’s aunt, Anna Mahase, we talked of the educational possibilities, that seeing a Great House and grounds restored to its original splendour could bring history alive for young Trinidadians. In fact one school has already booked a tour of Ortinola. And so, at last Trinidad has its own Great House to match those in Jamaican, Bajan and other tourist brochures — and Tobago’s Richmond Great House.

PS: For appointment to visit Ortinola, readers can call 696-1507, 663-0245, email russell@ortinola.com, info@ortinola.com or access to the website http://ortinola.com.