WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE SUMMER FALL 2015 HD.pdf

enda-style bed in commanding dark mahogany,
with 12-foot high windows letting
in jungle sounds to lull you to sleep.
Get the idea of how rock stars live now?
We unpacked and finished our drinks on
our veranda serenaded by water splashing
into pools and hidden fishponds.
Beyond, one of the hacienda’s many
stone paths disappeared into a carefully
attended jungle of native trees.
We didn’t leave the grounds for three
days and two nights. The hacienda offers
various excursions for its guests.
But when the epicures went off on an
exploratory day trip to the markets of
Merida, we stayed behind. We weren’t
going anywhere How many chances do
you get to live like a rock star?
The Hacienda Petac story began long before
the rock star era. After the conquest
of Mexico, Spain needed a way to control
and exploit the vast new territories.
So the crown granted huge tracts of land
to Spanish nobles. These tracts, organized
around haciendas, became centers
of farming and manufacturing and the
basis of a far-flung feudal system.
From the late 1600s to the mid 1900s,
Petac and the other haciendas were
symbols of wealth and status. Mexico’s
version of southern plantations. And,
like plantations, in the early days haciendas
adhered to a strict racial caste
system. The “haciendados,” or landowners,
were the masters, the “indigenos,”
mostly Maya, were the workers.
The economics of the hacienda system
changed in the 19th century and Petac
changed with it. Originally designed
for cattle ranching and farming, Petac,
like many Yucatacan haciendas, began
producing henequen -- later called sisal
because it was shipped from the colonial
port of Sisal. Shredding the pulpy leaves
of the henequen, a type of agave plant,
creates fibers for rope and twine.
Mechanized shredders, introduced in
the late 19th century, created an unprecedented
boom. Sisal was “green
gold.” Haciendas maintained huge
fields of agave and hundreds of workers.
Along with its “casa de maquinas” (machinery
house) and 50-foot chimney for
its power plant, haciendas often included
a school, a church, stables, an infirmary,
servants’ quarters, a granary, and
a company store.
The boom didn’t last. New processes for
making rope and twine appeared after
World War II. Eventually the sisal industry
collapsed and, one by one, most of
the haciendas were abandoned.
But there’s a happy ending. In the 1990s,
Mexican banker Robert Hernandez began
restoring the derelict haciendas to
Opposite: The Hacienda Petac before and after
restoration. Above :The hacienda main building
veranda and kitchen.
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