Original furniture
19th century.
Filipo Tardim — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ministério da Cultura — CC BY 2.0 · Filipo Tardim — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ministério da Cultura — CC BY 2.0 · Filipo Tardim — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Filipo Tardim — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Casa da Hera, the Ivy House, is a house museum in central Vassouras and the best example of a wealthy family's town home at the height of the Paraíba Valley coffee boom, the only home in the region that keeps its original 19th-century furniture and interior. It belonged to Joaquim José Teixeira Leite, one of the region's leading coffee agents, who bought it around 1840 to live in with his wife. Its last owner was his daughter, the investor Eufrásia Teixeira Leite, who left for Paris in 1873 after her parents died; the house stayed closed for almost fifty years, kept by two servants who received her detailed instructions from France. Eufrásia died in 1930 and willed that the house be kept «with everything in it in the same state», and it was listed as heritage in 1952. A visit feels like stepping into a house where time stood still; check opening times.
19th century.
From Paris.
Coffee era.
Central Vassouras, Rio de Janeiro state
It is the only home in the region that keeps its original 19th-century furniture.
