Calahonda History and Culture

Historical Calahonda

Sitio de Calahonda

The region of the Costa del Sol, namely Calahonda, came into being when two large estates were merged by the brothers, Gerado, Enrique and Elvira van Dulken who owned the 280 hectares of land. Many of the tracks can still be located there, El Campanario, which was the main access to the fort house Cortijo. And also the road leading from the N-340 into the centre of Calahonda, as it was, is now known as Calle Conde de Jordana. The old fort house was as secure as any other, offering shelter to those in danger at times of attack. Painted as a form of camouflage, white and ochre, like many others on the coast. The fort sported "Murder Holes" and thick walls against imposing invaders, giving security to the people inside.

The founder of Calahonda was an industrial engineer by the name of Mr Juan Orbaneja. He was also a member of the local government, and so took it upon himself to develope the region, splitting it into two areas, starting with the area now known as Cabopino. La Naranja social club was founded shortly after and the development of the area gathered further momentum. Some major changes, intrduced during the late 1960's, had a big impact on any further development. Calahonda had previously been giving planning permission to accomodate 45,000 people. however, new height restrictions on properties, changing the maximum height from 12 storeys to only 6, meant large scale modifications to any plans in place at the time.

Jose and Fernando Orbaneja, together with Carmen Desvalls came to the coast in 1963, as experts in land development, they were eager to find a new challenge after urbanising many areas in the province of Tarragona. They immediately liked the area of Calahonda, with its large pine tree coast and the hill which offered picturesque panoramic views of the sea, all of which gave the area exactly what the developers were looking for. After meeting with the Van Dulken family an agreement was made. The Orbaneja family purchased a portion of the land and began the urbanisation process, which included the land still owned by the Van Dulken family, and the Calahonda Urbanisations association was born.

Initially, after plans drawn up by Mr Gabriel Allende and Mr Garcia de Castro, both achitects of some note, the land was divided into several equal portions of either 5000m2 and 8000m2. There were many lavish constructions planned for the new area, including polo courts, an artificial lake and a social club, all to be located in El Campanario.

It became apparent early on that something needed to be done about the densly populated pine tree area. The trees, which had been standing for more than 80 years, were beginning to suffer. The trees were being suffocated due to their close proximity to each other, and so it was decided that they would need to be "thinned out". So in 1966 ICONA were brought in to deal with the situation, and it was decided that an area of 120 hectares in the Urbanisation was to be used to replant pine trees, all of which is still carried out to this day.

The Urbanisation was directed by Mr Fernando Orbaneja during the years of 1964 to 1966. He dedicated much of his time to the search and supply of water to the area of Calahonda, there had been several wells found in the area, however due to the characteristics of the area, more substantial sources would need to be found. As a measure to supply the region, the water found in these wells was pumped out and redistributed to a water deposit located in Calle Monteparaiso, which gave better means of supply to the first phase of construction. This however only lasted until 1969, where water had to be supplied by wagons during the summertime as drinking water due to an insufficiency.

Things were improving, and the construction of the Rio Verde reservior a year earlier in 1968 helped a great deal. The construction of a pipeline that reached Calahonda was undertaken in order to improve the supply of water. This was made possible by the works of the Hydro-graphic del Sur, a company who subsequently installed the entire pipeline structure in the Calahonda area. This work also created an oppotunity, in accordance with an agreement with Sevillana electricity company, to repair many of the damaged electric cables that had been previously damaged when the wells had been constructed.

All this hard work and careful planning has put in place the areas that we now know as Calahonda, as well as a large part of Cabopino.