The Project

In 1995, the present owners of the Fazenda das Minhocas were looking for a site where they could put up a study and research center aimed at developing new methodology to foster human welfare. This should be given support , in the one hand, in a building which would allow for contact with nature and also would enable the guests to experiment with self-help techniques and, on the other hand, in a natural reserve, by professional linked to mental and physical health who could share ideas and help each other in a whole ideal of human ecology.

A hotel project was born to give support to these interests. Therefore, a mineira farm was being sought in order to help to reestablish the relationship with the natural and cultural environment , where there could also be found a beautiful landscape. This was how the Fazenda das Minhocas was found, in the Jabuticatubas district, along the banks of the Rio das Velhas, 56 kilometers from Belo Horizonte and 20 kilometers from Lagoa Santa. It lies in one of the richest cultural areas of the state, where the pre-historical culture, represented by magnificent rupestrian paintings found in ancient caves and archeological sites, mingles with the history of our colonial period, when the richness brought about by the gold mining works left its signs in the landscape.

The relief of the region, sculptured by carbonaceous  rocks, have extremely interesting shapes. The caves account for great tourist potential, as the utmost expression of these shapes, and the renowned beauty of the speleothemes, regularly seen in Lagoa Santa and its surroundings, where Fazenda das Minhocas lies.
Today, The Cave Circuit has become matter of fact, since this project results from the partnership of several jurisdictions, mainly from Lagoa Santa, where there can be found the famous Lapinha Cave. Simultaneously, the neighboring circuit of Serra do Cipó, with its unique relief, wonderful falls, and regional flora, has been implemented. All these facts have contributed to generate a complete tourist complex in the surroundings, where the historical tourism coexists with the ecological, palaeoenthological and rural tourism, together with the projects of preventive medicine to be put forth by the Center of Human Ecology.


The Farm

This farm construction, dated from the early XVIII century, began before the 1720s, was purchased to integrate the Macaúbas Reclusion Convent, founded in 1714 by Felix da Costa, from Pernambuco. Its purpose, at first, besides mining gold and producing sugar cane, was to work as a house of prayer and meditation for the recluse nuns.
This place of seclusion played an important role in all the settlement and establishment of the local culture, coming to be, in the last quarter of the XVIII century, the first female school of the Province, a place where the nine daughters of Chica da Silva came to be educated. Fazenda das Minhocas used to be in the tropeiros route, and it was also
part of the Estrada Real. Several noble travelers who described the original characteristics of Minas Gerais passed by, such as Richard Burton(1867), Saint Hilaire (1822). Dr. Lund and his Danish assistants stopped by and two of these scientists married two of the earlier landlord’s daughters (around 1840). Besides the reclusion, today, the Macaúbas Convent, in the Santa Luzia district, and the Bandeirante  Fernão Dias House (1689), in Arraial do Fidalgo, the Fazenda das Minhocas is part of one of the most important historical-cultural complexes of Minas Gerais.

Over the past two years, the owners have developed and intense and fine restoration work on the Farm House, an impressive XVIII century mansion.
Three wards and the main house have already been restored. The construction of another ward for guests is yet to be built. All the newly built sections follow the same noble colonial architectural style. In the mean time the necessary infra-structural works are being carried out in order to make the Center of Human Ecology feasible.
( A registered non-governmental organization).