Sitio Litre Garden
The history of this marvellous hacienda, one of the oldest on the Island, goes back to the XVIIIth Century. The house was built in 1730 and for 44 years was a Convent. Its present name comes from its first proprietor Archibald Little who bought the holding in 1774, and the house and gardens came to be known as Little´s Place or Sitio Little, and the original name degenerated to the present Sitio Litre. Archibald carried out a series of reforms to turn it into a place of leisure; he restructured the house to turn it into a kind of inn or rest house and designed a lovely English-style garden in which he included representative Canary and subtropical plants. In 1852 it was sold to Charles Smith and stayed in his family until 1996 when the businessman John Lucas bought it and opened it to the public. The mansion is in colonial style with local touches. The roof terminates in a hexagonal viewpoint in English colonial style. Sitio Litre became the place to stop over for foreigners visiting the Island. Throughout its history, people as well-known as André-Pierre Ledru, Thomas Debary, Marianne North, Alexander von Humboldt, Alfredo Diston, William W. Wilde , Charles Piazzi-Smyth, Isaac Latimer, Richard Burton, Florence and Elle Du Cane, and Agatha and Rosalyn Christie passed through its doors. The result was that this botanical garden also became one of the main libraries on the Islands, as its illustrious visitors arrived accompanied by the latest publications from their home countries. At present, .Sitio Litre is an enchanting place to visit, with Puerto’s oldest dragon tree and a magic orchid garden.