The oldest house in the village was built in the in the 16th century and was used as a tobacco dryer in the 19th and 20th centuries
After the conquest, Las Vegas initially belonged to the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, passed into the hands of the Basque Juan de Gordejuela and, later, to the Augustinian nuns of the convent of San Andrés and Santa Mónica, which the Gordejuela family had founded in Los Realejos. From the 19th century onwards, the most influential people were the Guimerá family, originally from Tarragona, who acquired important properties during the confiscation of church properties.
The story goes that Agustín Guimerá i Ramón, a ship’s captain and founder of this family saga, was almost shipwrecked on his arrival in Tenerife in 1824, sold his ship and stayed on the island. According to his descendants, it was he who hung the bell from that ship on the pine tree in front of the chapel, as a bell tower, although the current bell is not the original one.
The building had multiple uses, including as a drying shed. The tobacco leaves were placed on crossbeams called mancuernas and separated into groups of leaves for better ventilation. For proper drying, it was necessary for the building not to be excessively humid and for it to be well ventilated.
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