Monjardim Manor House, Colonial manor museum in Vitoria, Brazil

Monjardim Manor House is the 18th-century seat of the Jucutuquara farm, begun in the 1780s and held to be the oldest private rural building of the Espírito Santo colonial period. It has eleven bedrooms, three salons, a long veranda, a kitchen with brick flooring and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel; attached outbuildings held cottage industries and quarters for household slaves.

The Jucutuquara estate belonged to the Jesuits until their expulsion, when it passed to the merchant Gonçalo Pereira Pinto. The manor house was begun in the 1780s and rebuilt in the early 19th century by captain-major Francisco Pinto Homem de Azevedo. In 1816 it entered the Monjardim family as the dowry of his daughter Ana Francisca; their son Alfeu Adolfo became Baron of Monjardim and president of Espírito Santo province in 1891. The family kept it about 150 years, until it was listed as national heritage on 25 October 1940.

The house takes its name from the Monjardim family, who held the Jucutuquara estate for about 150 years after Ana Francisca Maria da Penha Homem de Azevedo married José Francisco de Andrade e Almeida Monjardim in 1816. Their son Alfeu Adolfo received the title Baron of Monjardim and was elected president of the province of Espírito Santo in 1891. The chapel is dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The manor stands in the Santa Cecília/Jucutuquara area of Vitória, not in the city centre, so plan transport rather than a walk from downtown. The 2006 restoration added landscaped grounds and an amphitheatre. Allow time for the eleven rooms, three salons and chapel, and note that guided tours are arranged for groups.

The 1940 listing made it one of Brazil's earliest protected rural houses, yet the state rented the building in 1942 and only in 1978 was it definitively expropriated for the Federal University of Espírito Santo. The Monjardim family held the estate for about 150 years, from Ana Francisca's 1816 marriage dowry onward.