Hacienda Teya

Hacienda San Ildefonso Teya stands in the small village of Teya, in Kanasín municipality, at km 12.5 of the Mérida–Cancún highway (Federal Highway 180), about 10 km east of Mérida. The name joins San Ildefonso, the saint of the chapel in the main house, with Teya, the Maya word for the chicozapote (sapodilla) tree. The village of a little over 500 people grew up around the hacienda from the families who once lived and worked on the estate.

The hacienda was founded in 1683 by Ildefonsa Antonia Marcos Bermejo Calderón y de la Helguera, wife of the Count of Miraflores. For nearly two centuries it raised cattle and grew maize, and in the 19th century it switched to henequen, like most estates around Mérida. After the agrarian reform of 1937 its fields became an ejido while the core buildings stayed in private hands. The hacienda was abandoned in the first half of the 20th century; its current owner, Jorge Cárdenas Gutiérrez, began rebuilding it in 1987 and turned it into a restaurant and events venue.

Today Teya is best known for its food: a large restaurant of traditional Yucatecan cooking and family recipes, set in the old buildings and gardens. You enter through the red arched gateway marked with the name and the date 1683. The historic gardens are also a popular wedding venue, and the same family runs two Teya restaurants in central Mérida. The hacienda makes an easy lunch stop at the start or end of a trip east toward Izamal, Chichén Itzá or Valladolid.