Calahonda, Costa del Sol

HISTORY OF CALAHONDA
By Juan Orbaneja Desvall
For more about Calahonda see Calahonda
The area of Calahonda was formed by the merging of two real estates, with an area of 280 hectares was owned by the brothers Gerardo, Enrique and Elvira Van Dulken. The main access to the fort house Cortijo, nowadays El Campanario, was a track which started it´s route from the N-340 opposite "Algaida" going up through the centre of Calahonda, now Calle Conde de Jordana. The fort house of the land dated from the same period as the watchtowers along the coast, was painted with two colours, white on the lower part and ochre on the upper part, this to camouflage the fort and be able to watch the coast without being seen. During the period of the Moorish attacks the fort house meant shelter and was therefore provided with a big fireplace to prepare meals and to give warmth.

The monument at the highest part in Calahonda

Other characteristics were the spaces and openings to shoot through for defending against the attacks of the Moors. The fort house is and was provided with thick walls, giving more security to the same and isolating it from the cold and heat.
Founder Mr Juan Orbaneja, originally an industrial engineer and member of the local government started to develop Calahonda in two different zones and phases, started with Cabopino. Then the social club of La Naranja was founded and then the area was developed to create a centre and a new life style around it. During the late 1960´s major changes were introduced, although Calahonda has planning permission for 45,000 people the original level of building height allowed lowered from 12 storeys to only 6.

In 1963 the Orbaneja family, Jose and Fernando and Carmen Desvalls experts in the area of Land urbanizing as they developed one in the province of Tarragona came down to the Coast looking for land to urbanize. This was during the boom years at the time of big developments on this area. Among the lands they saw, was the one of Calahonda which they liked because of it´s characteristics and appearance, covered with pine trees on the lower part and with a peak height of 300 metres giving beautiful sea views. They contacted the owners, the Van Dulken family, coming to an agreement with them, which basically consisted in the purchase by the Orbaneja family of part of the land, to subsequently urbanize the same together with the rest of the land to be provided by the Van Dulken brothers. The Orbaneja brothers bought from General Egea (the owner of the fort house situated on the beach) about 120.000 metres from which approximate 40.000 metres belong to the area of Cabopino. The association in charge of the urbanization was called Calahonda Urbanizations.

The original planning of Calahonda was made by the architects Mr. Gabriel Allende and Mr. Garcia de Castro. The initial idea, just like in any urbanisation during this period, was the division of the lands into plots of 5000 m² and 8000 m², construction of an artificial lake, polo courts and the construction of a social club which was to be located in El Campanario.

From 1964 until mid 1966, General Director of the Urbanisation was Mr. Fernando Orbaneja, who worried about the water supply to the Urbanisation. He took care of the search and perforation of wells in the lands of Calahonda and although he found several ones, these were not sufficient to supply enough water to an Urbanisation with these characteristics. The first thing Mr. Juan Orbaneja did once he came to Calahonda was having pumped out water of the well where we nowadays can find the childrens playground.

This water was pumped to a deposit which had been constructed in the location of the community office in the Calle Monteparaiso and from where water was distributed to the first phase. In the year 1969 there was insufficient water, making it necessary to have water supplied by water wagons, during the summertime in order to supply drinking water to all the properties which up to this date had been built.

The situation of the water supply did change thanks to the plan of development of the Costa del Sol of 1968 by the construction of the Rio Verde reservoir. Water pipes reached Calahonda thanks to several works carried out and it was possible to supply the Urbanisation with water. It was the responsibility of the Hydro-graphic del Sur company to carry out the works on pipes installation around the urbanisation establishing a right of way.

The wells dried out with the exception of the one in Calle Playa. High voltage cables which were tangled up in the Calle de Jordana and Calle Holmdahl area were repaired, cables were put in on the boundaries of the urbanisation as well as low voltage cables and transformers completing the infrastructure works as far as electrical energy is concerned.

All this was carried out in accordance with the agreement signed by the Sevillana electricity company. Another agreement was reached with ICONA in 1966 consisting in planting of pine trees on 120 hectares of land in the Urbanisation. At this time the existing pine wood with an age over eighty years and with trees standing to close one from the other needed to be dealt with, making it necessary to thin out and clean the "erguenes" to save the pine trees as they were drying out and suffered from a pest called "barrenilla", this procedure has been carried out ever since then.

In 1966 on the arrival of Mr. Juan Orbaneja, infrastructure works carried out were the ones in Avenida de España and Calle de la Playa. From difficult beginnings bringing in of water and telephone lines, maintenance problems were rectified and by 1980 there were 500 houses.

For more about Calahonda see Calahonda

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