AREQUIPA, Peru – Baron de Kessel, a cultured man, arrived in Havana in 1770. Hearing of land for sale in Arroyo Apolo, beyond Jesús del Monte, he visited the land, was drawn to the vegetation and fresh air, and bought the property, which he named San José de Bellavista.
There he ordered the construction of a medieval-style castle with a German atmosphere, where he settled with his wife Carlota, his trusted slave, Julius Caesar, and raised his two children.
The writer Leonardo Padura in his book The longest journey He recreated the story of the Kessel family, also cited by journalist Ciro Bianchi in one of his texts.
Tragedy struck the estate’s inhabitants in 1808. On what probably seemed like an ordinary day, the slave Julio César woke up sick and was unable to accompany the baron on his morning tour of the property.
When Kessel returned, he found Julio César on the stairs, where he told his master that his wife was in the room upstairs with the carpenter José María.
The baron took his pistol, went up to the chambers and discovered the deception. He then murdered the two lovers and threw their bodies into a well. Deranged, he also killed his children and then committed suicide.
The slave Julius Caesar was freed with the death of his masters. Before leaving the house, he threw his 14 snails on the ground. He did it again and again, always with the same result. He thus understood that the spirits of the deceased would remain in the house forever.
Word soon spread that the house was haunted by ghosts. No one wanted to live in San José de Bellavista, and for 110 years, the Kessel mansion housed only the restless ghosts of the unfortunate family.
In 1920, however, the estate was acquired by José Genaro Sánchez, a wealthy businessman and father of the poet Gustavo Sánchez Galarraga, who settled in the abandoned property with his loved ones.
Disturbed, José Genaro called Father Camarero, who exorcised the house and recommended living in the tower. The noises became sporadic and, after some howls and angry footsteps, the spirits finally disappeared.
Over the years, the former Kessel mansion has been a police station, Gabino Campos’ tobacco factory, and later a textile workshop. After the triumph of Fidel Castro’s Revolution, which became a dictatorship, the castle served as a warehouse.
Today, what remains of the baron’s old residence is a tenement house in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo. Whether its inhabitants have had contact with paranormal entities of yesteryear remains to be proven.
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2024-07-28 20:00:10
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