Finca Nazaret can be seen from a conglomeration of streets where nobody walks. The network of brand new avenues overlaps with the agricultural features of the Benimagrell disctrict, so you can see the old plantations of olive groves or the remains of Camí Real de la Vila Joiosa where you will find the entrance to the beautiful estate. It is accessed through a masonry entrance with an arch, topped by a linteled entablature, under a pinnacle decorated with scrolls of different sizes. A forged green door and floral bindings supports the letters “Nazareth”, along with a sign that reminds us that it is forbidden to access the property.
Although Nazareth is currently abandoned, it symbolized Alacant’s oligarchy for centuries. We know that in the middle of the nineteenth century the owner was Agripina García de Ferrándiz, and at the beginning of the twentieth century the owner was uan Rubert Orts, who was councilor of the Alacant Town Council. As a landowner, he also fought for the arrival of the Aguas de Levante company to the Horta (Cropland). Once, the parish priest of Benimagrell thanked the Orts family for the repairs carried out in the neighbouring hermitage of Sant Roc.
The considerable dimensions of the construction are a good example of the importance of the property. It is also relevant the noble access to the house that was on the upper floor, and which was accessed by a beautiful staircase located in the south facade, now disappeared. The house was associated with the estate, but the several changes of use resulted in numerous reforms carried out in the eighteenth century and in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The interior is characterized by a large hallway with two interconnecting corridors connected by a semicircular arch. The staircase is arranged in this space and its landing continues in a long gallery. The pavement is made up of pieces of ceramic brick, arranged in the form of a spike, with a double “S” engraved on the surface. The handrail of the staircase is made up of a wooden rail and wrought iron bars. The roof is linteled, and in the vestibule we find a parapet built with a piece of stone. There is a cellar in a semi-basement attached to the south facade.
The facades are plastered with mortar. In them you can distinguish the mentioned reforms, as well as the nineteenth-century taste in the plaster mouldings around the windows, although the balconies possibly are of the eighteenth century.
The garden is in very bad conditions. It is located in front of the northwest and southeast facades. Its pinewood is also very deteriorated. The architect Santiago Varela said in the 80s that there was a group of four curved benches arranged around a huge ombu. The ombu is a native tree of the Argentine pampa known with the nickname of beautiful shadows. Nowadays, the benches seem stripped of their original place, as they are dropped by the old tree. The northwest yard has a huge bougainvillea, near the house of the guards. This house of service is still inhabited today. The presence of numerous white poplars in front of the west facade is striking, riverbank trees that make us think of the presence of groundwater nearby, since they appear to be in good health.
At some point in the last century, the Finca Natzaret was called Vil·la Dolores. Nowadays, the neighbourhood of Nou Nazaret is trapped between two worlds; an agricultural one that decades ago ceased to exist; an urban world that has not yet arrived.. Only ghosts roam through streets full of urban furniture, traffic signs, lamp posts, tree-lined avenues and asphalt roads covered with scrubs. In the fields of Benimagrell no vines, no olive trees or carob trees are grown. Their lands await the arrival of the new neighbours.
