Quinta Touché, Heritage estate near Paseo Bolívar, Chihuahua City, Mexico
Quinta Touché is a three-level residence on Paseo Bolívar, built in English style between 1901 and 1904 by architect George E. King. Its adobe walls are clad outside in red brick with a stone guardapolvo, and inside are plaster and paint finishes, mosaic and machimbre floors, and wooden doors and windows. A basement, ground floor, upper floor and attic are topped by a quarry-stone perimeter course, with stone steps at the two entrances, on Paseo Bolívar and Avenida Independencia.
The building was constructed in 1904 under the design of architect George King for businessman Jacobo Touché. During the Mexican Revolution, it served as a military hospital and became the place where General Toribio Ortega died.
Locals called it the Casa del Turco after Jacobo Touché, an Arab-origin merchant who arrived in Chihuahua in 1888. Writer John Reed recorded another nickname, La Quinta de las Lágrimas, said to come from gamblers who lost money at Touché's El Cosmopolita gaming house. The building now houses the Toribio Ortega museum and the Municipal Institute for Women.
The building is owned by the Municipal Government of Chihuahua and holds the Toribio Ortega museum together with the Instituto Municipal de las Mujeres. It has two main entrances, one on Paseo Bolívar and another on Avenida Independencia, each reached by stone steps. The house stands on a lot of about 741 m², with a ground floor, upper floor, basement and attic.
The nickname Quinta de las Lágrimas comes from the fortune behind it: writer John Reed, in México insurgente (page 299), links the house to Jacobo Touché's gambling house El Cosmopolita, where many players lost their money and wept over their bad luck.
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