Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

On Fri­day, an icon­ic part of the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en, Mille Fleurs, was hand­ed over to the Na­tion­al Trust of T&T af­ter four years of restora­tion work and $10 mil­lion spent to re­turn the struc­ture to its for­mer glo­ry.

The home was built in 1904 as a gift to Dr En­rique Pra­da from his wife, Vir­ginia and, since then, stood res­olute over­look­ing the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. But as the years went by, time took its toll un­til the de­ci­sion was tak­en by cab­i­net in 2016 to in­clude the build­ing as part of a restora­tion pro­gramme for icon­ic struc­tures in T&T.

The now re­stored struc­ture was de­scribed by Dr Pra­da’s great-grand­daugh­ter, Heather May-Wit­tet, in one word—“per­fect.”

“This is won­der­ful. It’s a priv­i­lege for my­self and my fam­i­ly to see this come alive again,” Heather May-Wit­tet told Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the hand­ing over cer­e­mo­ny.

“My dad would have brought me here as a child, maybe 12 or 13. The last time (I came here) was maybe 20, 23 years ago. I was not able to come up­stairs be­cause the floors...they were rot­ting. It was un­safe to come up.”

The house, she said, was a per­fect match to the pho­tos in the fam­i­ly al­bum.

May-Wit­tet al­so brought a piece of her great grand­moth­er to the cer­e­mo­ny; a pair of her ear­rings, hand­ed down through the gen­er­a­tions, which she wore.

A lighted Mille Fleurs during the handover ceremony last week.

ANISTO ALVES

She was ac­com­pa­nied to the cer­e­mo­ny by her daugh­ter, Jessie-Marie Chaves who first stepped foot in­side the house in March along with her chil­dren. She re­mem­bered pass­ing the house while on her way to vis­it her grand­par­ents, look­ing at the house while pass­ing by and was ex­treme­ly grate­ful for the ef­fort that went in­to pre­serv­ing not on­ly a part of her fam­i­ly’s his­to­ry but the coun­try’s.

“It was like that used to be our fam­i­ly’s home (and now) I tell my kids; that was our fam­i­ly home,” she said.

“This is part of our his­to­ry, this is part of our fam­i­ly his­to­ry. So it’s very spe­cial, very mean­ing­ful, very spe­cial to be back here and to know the hard work and plan­ning and the thought and those who fought to keep the house still stand­ing and who fought to keep it beau­ti­ful...it re­al­ly should be com­mend­ed.”

About Mille Fleurs restora­tion

Mille Fleurs was built in 1904 by George Brown of the Trinidad Trad­ing Com­pa­ny as a gift to Dr En­rique Pra­da who would serve as the May­or of Port-of-Spain from 1914 to 1917.

Dr Pra­da was a schol­ar and a pub­lic-mind­ed man. Born in Venezuela in 1867, he came to Trinidad at an ear­ly age where he lived un­til his death in 1944.

Named among Trinidad’s “Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en” build­ings and recog­nised by the pub­lic as na­tion­al her­itage site, the restora­tion project was meant to sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hance the morale of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

The project in­clud­ed the restora­tion and trans­for­ma­tion of the build­ing from a pri­vate res­i­dence to a pub­lic mu­se­um.

An­oth­er build­ing named “The Mews” was con­struct­ed on the site of the for­mer sta­bles, at the rear of the prop­er­ty which will con­tain of­fices for the mu­se­um staff; a restora­tion and her­itage li­brary; stor­age of an­tiques; pub­lic bath­rooms and a small cafe­te­ria and shop for the vis­i­tors.

Land­scaped gar­dens and am­bi­ent ex­te­ri­or light­ing was done to com­ple­ment the ar­chi­tec­ture and cre­ate an el­e­gant con­trast to the Sa­van­nah at night. Seat­ing will al­so be pro­vid­ed in a des­ig­nat­ed area on the grounds to al­low vis­i­tors to view and en­joy the gar­dens.