Montejo 495 is one of the "Cámara Houses" or "Twin Houses" located on Paseo de Montejo. Built between 1908 and 1911, they were based on a Beux-Arts design in the French Second Empire Style by a French architect who never saw the homes. Initially, they served as private residences for the de la Cámara family. Montejo 495 was then purchased by the Barbachano family in 1964 and opened as a museum in 2021. Between 1870 and 1920, Yucatán experienced a period of economic prosperity as a result of the rise of the henequen industry. In1888, wealthy Merida residents built a boulevard modeled after Champs Elysées in Paris, which they called Paseo de Montejo. Soon, many wealthy Yucatecan families began to build European-style mansions along Paseo de Montejo. Montejo 495 is one of those homes, and it's been beautiful restored. Because henequen and the mansions financed by haciendas henequeneras are such an important part of Merida's history and culture, I was very excited to visit one of the mansions on the Paseo de Montejo when we visited Merida this past week over the Thanksgiving holiday. The house is accessible by guided tour only, but we walked up and asked if they could give tours in English, which they said they could. They asked us to wait about ten minutes until the tour that had just started had moved further into the house, and then we began a short guided tour of the house in English. There's a small fee (and an even smaller fee if you want to take photographs), but it's definitely worth visiting! There aren't many of the original mansions on the Paseo de Montejo left (some have been torn down and many others have been turned into banks or insurance company offices or even a Starbucks), so it's wonderful to be able to experience one of these grand homes and learn a little more about Merida's history! read more