Can Carbonell
13th century farmhouse
It is the oldest documented house in the whole term. A document preserved by the owner dates from 1251 and already belonged to the Carbonell family, which has survived to the present day. The house was very transformed in the early nineteenth century and the result of that reform is its current appearance, although it was restored in 1988. Today it is enabled as a restaurant.
Can Carbonell is a farmhouse in the municipality of Sant Just Desvern on the right bank almost at the head of the stream of Pahissa or Valle de San Justo. The oldest document kept by the current owner and written in Latin on parchment is dated 1251 and can be considered the only documented house in Sant Just Desvern that from that date until today has been passed from parents to children without changing family or name. Inside the farmhouse there is a restaurant serving typical Catalan cuisine. The building is part of the Inventory of the Architectural Heritage of Catalonia.
In 1160 a house is documented in this place, but it is not until 1304 that there is news of Can Carbonell. This house is one of the first documented that have existed in the town of Sant Just Desvern and that of these primitives is one that to this day have retained its first and only name. Within the parish archive it is mentioned in a document of January 17, 1304 on the occasion of a pastoral visit made in the parish where the name of Mateo Carbonell appears.
At the end of the 19th century, the current wine cup was built, a construction that is without internal communication from the rest of the house. The whole house consists of ground floor with the spacious entrance around which there is, from left to right, the kitchen, the access stairs to the first floor, the entrance to the cellar and the cellar, the bakery room and the dining room . On the first floor there is the settler's room, which has a completely independent entrance, and the rooms around the room. In one of them there is a staircase to go up to the attic that only occupy the southern slope of the house.
As a dryland farmhouse, Can Carbonell dedicated his whole life to the most typical crops of the dry areas of Catalonia: cereals, vines and olive trees. Due to the mountainous orography of their property the cereals always occupied a very reduced extension dedicating themselves the flatter lands in the wheat, the barley and the oats.
We currently have the testimony of paintings and corrals to understand that he has always won. Horses for animal traction from farm work and other animals such as pigs, goats and poultry for own consumption and for sale.
It belongs to one of the oldest families in the village, the Carbonell family, the only surname that has survived since the 13th century. The line of succession was started by Arnau Carbonell and Ermessenda. Since 1304, the farmhouse has its current name. In 1515 it was owned by Margarita Carbonell, heiress of the farmhouse, and Pere Carbonell, a native of Vallvidrera. In the 16th century, to differentiate itself from Can Carbonell de la Plaça and the Carbonell de la Creu, the place name “de la Muntanya” was added to the surname. Joaquim Carbonell Vilagut was three times councilor of the City council, in 1869, 1877 and 1881.
His son Joaquim Carbonell Modolell built, in 1894, a large house on Bonavista Street and moved the family residence and the dairy there. In the twentieth century, he was mayor twice: the periods 1912-18 and 1923-31. His grandson restored the farmhouse and in 1985 converted it into a restaurant.
