Finca/Country House for sale in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife

Reference: 821470

Samartín Estate

Valle de Guerra · San Cristóbal de La Laguna · Tenerife

More than five centuries of history, 13 hectares, and a single title deed. One of the last great privately owned estates in northern Tenerife.

European grandees do not need another house. What they can no longer find is scale, history, and privacy brought together in a single estate, still in private hands. Samartín is one of the few.

In the midlands of Valle de Guerra, in the green north of Tenerife, two sister estates coexist. The first, Casa de Carta, built in the 18th century by Captain Matías Rodríguez Carta, is now home to the Museum of History and Anthropology of Tenerife. The second, Samartín, remains what both once were: a living, intact estate, and, for the first time in generations, transferable.

The Estate

More than 13 hectares stretch, uninterrupted and with no visible neighbours, from the old roads of Boquerón and Moya to the crest of the mountain range. A single estate. A single title deed. A horizon owned from end to end, over the same volcanic soils that for centuries made Valle de Guerra one of the archipelago’s great wine-growing regions.

At the heart of the estate, 414 m² of established residences. The main residence, or manor house, and the second house, or farm workers’ house as it was traditionally known, both make it possible to live on the estate from day one. Surrounding them are historic vineyards, irrigated fruit trees, open pastureland, and untouched slopes, watered by streams flowing from the mountain range itself.

All of this lies within the municipality of San Cristóbal de La Laguna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A Lineage on a Par with Europe’s Great Houses

The historic estates that come to market in Bordeaux, Tuscany, or the Cotswolds almost always present two or three centuries of pedigree. Samartín offers more than five.

In 1496, Alonso Fernández de Lugo, Adelantado of the Canary Islands, completed the conquest of Tenerife. Two years later, in 1498, he granted the entire valley as a reward to Lope Fernández de la Guerra, whose surname gave rise to the place name. From that founding allocation emerged the human geography of Valle de Guerra: a handful of great estates worked for five centuries by the families that would define the island’s viticulture, international trade, and northern architecture.

From the same circle as the conqueror descended the Casa de los Benítez de Lugo, one of Tenerife’s founding lineages, which in 1559 established one of the oldest entailed estates in the archipelago.

Three centuries later, the Samartín line crystallised in a singular figure: D. Ángel Benítez de Lugo y Cólogan (18551928), 10th Marquis of La Celada, documented as the owner of this estate from the late 19th century. His surname unites two of the most significant houses in Tenerife’s history:

The Benítez de Lugo family, from the conqueror’s circle. And the Cólogans, an Irish house from La Orotava that dominated the international trade in Canarian Malvasia wine for two centuries—the legendary Canary Sack celebrated by Shakespeare, which carried the name of the Islands to the courts and wine cellars of Europe.

Since then, Samartín has remained within the orbit of the same family, generation after generation, until today.

What Is Acquired

Samartín is not a property: it is a position.

Whoever acquires it becomes custodian of a living chapter in Tenerife’s history and receives an asset whose combination of attributes is now virtually impossible to replicate:

- One of the last great privately owned historic estates in northern Tenerife, in a market where equivalent properties are now found only after being transformed into museums, institutional hotels, or corporate wineries.

- Genuine, undivided scale: 13 contiguous hectares with a single title deed, on an island where land fragmentation has made it virtually impossible to reassemble a comparable area.

- A documented, verifiable, and transferable lineage, anchored in the island’s conqueror, a 16th-century founding entailed estate, and the Marquisate of La Celada.

- A residence habitable from day one, while also offering an extraordinary canvas for an individual vision.

- An exceptional microclimate averaging 18 to 24 °C annually and volcanic soil among the most acclaimed in Canarian viticulture.

- A privileged strategic position: 10 minutes from the Atlantic, 20 from Santa Cruz, 25 from Tenerife North International Airport, and within the municipality of La Laguna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

- A distinctive Canarian tax regime (REF, ZEC) and routes to European residency, in one of the most discreet—and therefore private—historic property markets in all of Europe.

Four Possible Futures

Few properties can support four such different visions with equal legitimacy. Samartín accommodates them all:

01 · Multigenerational Family Residence
An estate for children and grandchildren, transferable under the same name by which it has already been passed down for more than a century.

02 · Boutique Winery with an Authorial Vision
On one of the most acclaimed volcanic terroirs in the Canary Islands, following the path of the wine renaissance that has brought Canarian wines to Michelin-starred restaurants in Tokyo, New York, and Copenhagen.

03 · Ultra-Luxury Rural Hospitality
A boutique retreat with the historical depth and landscape scale demanded by the great international ultra-luxury brands.

04 · Private Reserve and Regenerative Agriculture Project
One of the few contiguous expanses where this is still possible.

“For more than five centuries, Samartín has belonged to a single story.
You will write the next one.”

Request the private dossier, provided upon request following qualification of interest. Visits strictly by appointment.