A Small Versailles in Havana
HAVANA TIMES – In the very heart of El Vedado, Havana, on the corner of 17th and E, rises a mansion that seems frozen in time. Its neoclassical walls, French windows, and spacious halls speak of an era when Havana dreamed of being cosmopolitan and elegant. This is the National Museum of Decorative Arts, known as the “small Versailles of Cuba,” a space where aristocratic history, the opulence of unique collections, and cultural legacy converge.
The history of the house is closely tied to the Gomez-Mena family, one of the most powerful in Cuba’s sugar industry at the start of the 20th century. It was Jose Gomez-Mena Vila, owner of the famous Manzana de Gomez, a block in downtown Havana, who commissioned the residence between 1924 and 1927. The project was designed by French architects P. Virad and M. Destugue, inspired by Parisian palaces of splendor.
There lived Jose’s sister, Maria Luisa Gomez Mena, who would become Countess of Revilla de Camargo after marrying Spaniard Agapito Cagiga. Widowed and settled in Havana. The countess turned the mansion into her refuge—and into a temple of collecting.
The Legacy of the Countess of Revilla de Camargo
Maria Luisa Gomez was a tireless traveler. Paris, London, Vienna, New York, and Madrid were obligatory stops on her European and USA tours. In every city she visited antique shops, auction houses, and galleries, acquiring pieces of the most refined styles: French clocks, Aubusson tapestries, Baccarat crystal, Sevres, Meissen, and Worcester porcelains, Japanese screens, Chinese lacquer, and sculptures by Clodion.
Among her most celebrated acquisitions stands out a secretaire once owned by Marie Antoinette—a drop-front writing desk attributed to the master cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener, creator of the furniture of Louis XVI’s court. Crafted around 1780 in fine woods and adorned with marquetry, gilded bronze, and porcelain appliqués, it was designed to safeguard the French queen’s private papers. The countess acquired it at an auction in Paris and placed it in an honor hall, fully aware that it was not just another piece of furniture, but a fragment of European history she had managed to bring to Havana.
Amid the political upheaval of the 1950s, María Luisa feared for the safety of her patrimony. She therefore decided to hide part of her collection in secret compartments in the mansion’s basement: Oriental porcelains, crystalware, paintings, tapestries, and documents. For her, concealing them was a way to protect them from potential looting, confiscation, or even the instability in the country.
When in 1964 the mansion was expropriated and converted into a museum, workers discovered this hidden treasure. The news astonished both specialists and visitors: the countess had silently preserved a part of her legacy.
Visiting the museum today is to walk through centuries of history. The museum houses more than 33,000 pieces spanning from the 2nd century BC to the 20th century.
In the Louis XV Room, French rococo breathes from every curve of the upholstered armchairs and the gilded consoles. The Oriental Room displays Chinese porcelains and Japanese screens that seem to have traveled intact from the Ming dynasty to Havana’s modernity.
The Louis XVI Room is a feast of neoclassical symmetry, and there, in a place of honor, rests Marie Antoinette’s secretaire. Visitors often pause before it in silence, as if understanding that it is not merely a piece of furniture, but a witness to courtly secrets and the fragility of empires.
On the ground floor, pendulum clocks mark the pace of suspended time, while Persian rugs and Aubusson tapestries soften the ambiance. In the Empire Room, mahogany furniture evokes Napoleonic power, and in the corridors, light filtered through French stained glass multiplies the feeling of intimate luxury.
Every object, every hall, tells a double story: that of the artists and artisans who created it, and that of a countess who sought it out, safeguarded it, and made her passion a legacy within the walls of her mansion—a small Versailles in Havana.