S’Hort des Correu, the lost garden of Mallorca, remains abandoned and without a buyer

ManacorIn March 2022, the Servera family, linked to the Caves of Drach in Portocristo, put the s'Hort des Correu estate up for sale, on the outskirts of the city of Manacor. This definitively ended a century-old relationship of the space with the town and with one of the most curious myths of the Sant Joan night. Around those dates, more than four years ago, the Llull family, the last caretakers of the house, had already left es Correu three years prior, shortly before the pandemic. And with them, the tradition of the magic 'vimer', the tree capable of curing hernias once a year, for children who passed naked through its branches at sunrise on the shortest night, always at 6:20 AM, had disappeared.

Now that it will be eight years without a 'vimer', the estate remains closed and for sale. No longer for that initial 1.2 million, but for 750,000 euros, according to the real estate portal Idealista, which, in addition to offering the technical data of the property (a plot of 26,000 m2 and a built area of approximately 600 m2), explains that "there is the possibility of conditioning 12 bedrooms and other rooms such as an entrance lounge, a living and dining room with very high ceilings or a very spacious kitchen with access to the beautiful patio. The exterior part is almost completely surrounded by old stone walls. The well with an old fountain, the immense water pond, several patios, open and covered terraces form the perfect setting for the creation of a paradisiacal garden".

The redirection to the sales portal, First Mallorca based in Calvià, also hints at the possibility that s'Hort des Correu could "be easily transformed into a rural guesthouse with its own restaurant tomorrow", in addition to including nearby local geographical references such as "the center of Manacor and Rafael Nadal's tennis academy, the proximity to Portocristo and the numerous maritime coves, as well as the direct motorway connection to Palma and the airport".

Botanical garden

But returning to the 'paradisiacal garden' referred to in the promotional advertisement, we know that s'Hort des Correu was, in fact, a space for agricultural experimentation very close to the village. In a modernist style with ceramic elements typical of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this place, of an English and somewhat disordered typology, near the houses of s'Hort des Correu, gathered a large quantity and variety of trees, medicinal plants, and shrubs.

Located at the exit of Manacor towards Portocristo, it was in the last years of the 19th century when the brothers Joan and Miquel Amer Servera 'Correu' designed a botanical garden there to complement and give prestige to the irrigated agricultural exploitation. With scientific and recreational purposes, the garden (now abandoned) still features the magic vimer, where until two years ago dozens of people affected by hernias passed through the middle of its branches on Saint John's morning.

Notable were the gallonated hydrias and those worked in a planar manner from an oval section, as well as pilasters intended to support the pots and the railing of the washhouse with rectangular balusters formed by the superposition of semicircles with vegetal ornamentation. The botanical garden was, at the same time, a welcoming space for leisure and relaxation.

Belonging for a time to the Sa Font Nova estate, it occupied (and still occupies) an area of four acres of vegetables and grain. In front of the house entrance stands a sandstone pedestal with pot holders, with a washbasin that had a promenade with benches for rest and garden observation. Now only some orange trees and remains of a hexagonal terrace are left. Also some channels that were used to bring water from a well.