Gabriela Villalobos
Historian

If you have ever been around the corner of the Bella Vista Barrack on Central Avenue, you have seen two houses, which a lot of people mistake with Mauro Fernández’s house.  This house only has part of a wall and an arch on the north left.

These other two houses are older than the Bella Vista Barrack, from 1917.  They come from the XIX century, but the house on the corner was remodeled when the 17th street opened.  When the barrack was built, the house on the corner became the home for the First Commander, and the house next to that became the home for the Second Commander.

When the National Museum moved into the Barrack, in 1949, the Meteorological Institute was settled in those houses for several decades.  Since 1979 until a few months ago, the houses were the Anthropology and History Department of the National Museum.