The history of Ca'n Puig de Sòller is closely linked to this unique corner of the Sierra de Tramuntana, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Valley walled by its majestic mountains among which stands out the Puig Major, the highest peak of the island of Mallorca and that stands out, omnipresent, watchful and protective, framed in the north background if we contemplate the view from the balconies of the main facade. It is accompanied from the northeast by the Sierra de Alfabia and from the southeast by the Puig de's Teix, which form the natural border with the rest of the island. To the northwest we find the Commune of Fornalutx, the mountain of Moncaire and the Puig de Balitx that close the access to the sea, only open through the shell of the emblematic Port of Sóller. Thanks to this port, for centuries, we have been able to exercise maritime trade with the outside of the valley, mainly with the French coasts in such a way that, even today, there is a strong link between Sóller and France through its commercial networks and the emigration of local relatives. We speak of the valley of Sóller as a unit in which we find four population centers: Sóller, Fornalutx, Biniaraix and the Port of Sóller. All of them surrounded by terraces of orange, lemon and olive trees, in turn furrowed by an endless number of irrigation channels that make up a laborious irrigation network, taking advantage of the water resources offered by the environment, with its springs and streams.

Sóller's economy has been based for centuries on the export of oranges, lemons, olive oil and the textile industry.

In 1906, the engineer Pedro Garau, uncle of my maternal grandmother Amanda Salas Garau, drew the first sketch of the current Sóller railroad, which would allow the connection with the rest of the island, tracing the route between Sóller and Palma de Mallorca. Until then, to get around the abrupt mountain range, it was only possible to travel by animal-drawn carriage with several tolls, making mobility very difficult and laborious and leaving the only efficient means of transport as the sea.

At the beginning of the 20th century Sóller had its own electricity company, El Gas S.A., which supplied the whole valley, the railroad and the tramway and which had the hydroelectric energy supply of the Salt de Sa Costera, obtained from the use of an important spring of water that bursts into the sea on the north coast with a beautiful waterfall. Thanks to the wealth of natural resources, economic activity began based on agriculture, with the export of citrus fruits and oil, livestock, mainly sheep, more for subsistence than for trade and thanks to maritime transport, and the trade route with France, a textile industry that initially used steam engines with coal engines, later gas engines supplied by the company El Gas S.A., passing through diesel, until its progressive electrification. The appearance of the Sóller train was the final boost to the valley's economic engine, allowing the opening of the trade network. Its locomotive went from running on coal to its electrification over the years.

At that time Sóller, thanks to its economic growth, had an important business network in the industrial and agricultural sector. It was this financial drive that led to the particularity that the town had its own bank, the Banco de Sóller, unlike the majority of municipalities in Mallorca. In the 70's tourism gained its splendor and became the main economic engine of the valley until today.

Having exposed these aspects of the idiosyncrasy of this wonderful place, we can return to the history of Ca'n Puig.

José María Puig Morell, born in 1903, was the first owner of Ca'n Puig. He bought an old house located in Mar Street, whose first floor was used as a store selling oil and had some humble outbuildings on the upper floor. In the back part there was a vegetable field, of different property, with access by the Plaza de's Mercat, which he also acquired to build his house, with the present gardens, in 1944. He lived there until his death in 2009, when he was about to turn 106 years old. Subsequently, he bequeathed Ca'n Puig to his grandson Diego Puig Fortuny, in charge of narrating a family history intimately linked to the roots of the place and from the most absolute respect and love to past generations of entrepreneurs, fighters and self-made.

The Puig family was a humble family from l'Horta, in Sóller. They were known as Ca'n Lauet. My great-grandfather, Juan Puig Rullan (1862-1938), unloaded the fish brought by the barges, after fishing, to the fish market in the Port of Sóller from the age of nine. At the age of fifteen he set sail for Havana, Cuba, in 1877, accompanied by his uncle José María, on a long voyage that lasted three months. There he got a job as a waiter in a shoe store. He soon stood out for his ease and speed of mental calculation, taking care of the accounting, and acquiring a lottery administration, located in front of the shoe store, owned by a man who was retiring without succession. It was then when he met some Galicians, his future partners in Havana, who proposed him to work for them in the commercial establishment "Salmonte y Domazo" as manager, continuing, at the same time, with the lottery administration business that he managed with an employee in charge. Later, seeing the need for currency exchange in Cuba and the great financial movement of the moment, he was the promoter of a banking entity in association with the owners of "Salmonte y Domazo". A bank under the management of "Salmonte y Puig" prospered and acquired certain prestige in Havana. Finally he acquired the participation of his partners and continued with the business until, by medical prescription, he returned to Spain in 1898. When he arrived in his native Sóller, he promoted the foundation of the Bank of Sóller, of which he was president between 1918 and 1938, the year of his death. He was alderman and mayor of Sóller in 1909 and 1912. He presided over the company Ferrocarril de Sóller from 1911 to 1938, of which he was a shareholder. He revived the textile factory of Juan Morell Coll(Ca'n Bac), the late brother of his wife Aina Morell Coll, my great-grandmother, whom he had married on his return from Cuba. Together with Juan's widow, Catalina Estartús Guardiola, and the partners Damián Mayol Alcover and Guillermo Frontera Magraner, he constituted the new textile company.

In 1903 his son José María Puig Morell, my grandfather, was born to a financial father and a mother who was the daughter of a textile industrialist. In his adolescence, together with five companions, he founded the Marià Esportiu and bought the agricultural land Camp de'n Mayol, which became the field of the Sóller Football Club, where they still play today, and of which he was captain. In 1920 he studied Chemistry at the Industrial Section of the Bonanova school in Barcelona, run by the La Salle congregation. There he received piano and singing lessons from the opera singer Giovaccini. He was named captain of the soccer team with which he won the university league. After graduating as a Chemical Expert, he joined the Pupilage of Tarrasa studying Industrial Textile Engineering. There he was awarded the prize for best student. Again he was named captain of the soccer team and again won the university league championship. At that time, he received an offer to sign with FC Barcelona, which he turned down in order to finish his academic training. He was also a candidate to represent Spain in the First Central American and Caribbean Games of athletics, held in Mexico in 1926, competing in 100 and 200 meters, which he also rejected, holding a Spanish record in athletics in these modalities for several years. He returned to Sóller at the age of twenty-four and, although he always continued to practice sports activities, he definitively disassociated himself from soccer at the age of twenty-six, after having played in his native team for two more years.

At the age of twenty-four he became the director of the family textile factory, which he relaunched together with his relative Guillermo Frontera Magraner, renaming it "Frontera y Puig S.L." and in which he assumed a fifty percent shareholding. During the 30's he was a member of the Maurista Party where he developed an intense political and journalistic activity. When the Civil War ended, the Governor of the Balearic Islands proposed him as mayor of Sóller, but he declined the offer due to the non-existence of political parties during the Franco regime. He joined the Board of Directors of Banco de Sóller and was the promoter of its subsequent sale to Banco Hispano. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the local electricity company El Gas S.A. and of the Ferrocarril de Sóller, a company of which he became President for forty-five years, continuing as Honorary President until his death.

In 1944 he married Inés Alemany Guasp, an endearing grandmother from a well-to-do family in Palma, who knew how to take her place in Ca'n Puig, with whom he had four children. Curiously, Inés, "Lila" as I baptized her in my childhood, was a first cousin of the grandfather of my wife María Obrador Planas, promoter of the Hotel Ca'n Puig de Sóller project and for whom "Lila" always showed great affection. Besides, the cousins adored each other since childhood but, for family reasons, they were years apart and our wedding was a tender reunion between them.

After the closure of the textile factory in the 1970s, due to the profound structural changes that threatened the sector, he maintained the rest of his business activities in parallel with stock market investments in an attempt to diversify his business and distribute risks. Such was the importance of this activity in his life, and until shortly before his death in 2009, that in 2007 the President of the BBVA Bank in Spain paid him a courtesy visit in Sóller. I had the opportunity to attend that meeting and it was truly endearing. During the meeting, Mr. Francisco Gonzalez, President of BBVA, looked at me and said: "This man, at one hundred and three years old, knows almost more about our bank than I do". At the end of this important visit, in which orange juice was a must, the journalists took a photograph immortalizing the effusive embrace in which the two people embraced. It was the subject of all the front pages of the Balearic newspapers. At that time I had been awarded the prize of the Royal Academy of Medicine and that was also the subject of news that same week. I remember that it was a Tuesday, a day on which I always visited him and had lunch with him. I congratulated him on his meeting and the headlines. He also congratulated me, as he had read my award article, and added, "I see that you and I are in fashion." He then asked me about the content of this recognition and I explained the concept of my Rapid Diagnostic Unit (RDU), the rationale for its existence, the organizational chart, etc.. After five minutes of conversation in which I was making my presentation enthusiastically and waiting for his reproval as soon as I finished, he suddenly interrupted me, saying: "Boy, during my life as a textile businessman I had regular meetings with businessmen from other sectors and one day a representative of the footwear sector told me a story...". The businessman said, "I have a journeyman who makes me two pairs of shoes a day, perfectly finished, when the usual thing is to make one. I have ordered the apprentices to work with him and, curiously, they all learn to make just one pair, albeit well finished". 

We continued with lunch and, after chatting about other matters, my grandfather asked me: "Did you understand what I said before? If you explain everything that your UDR project entails, and reveal the secret of your idea, you will no longer be indispensable in your job". After his comments, I understood that I had before me a businessman, a financier, a person who appreciated me and constantly gave me his wise advice, but who also, and perhaps this was part of the secret of his success, never forgot that he came from Ca'n Lauet, a humble and courageous family.

To finish my descriptive analysis of this unrepeatable person, icon of Ca'n Puig, I must mention one last anecdote. One Saturday, walking together as we used to do when it was possible for me to accompany him in his routine, when he was one hundred and four years old, we met a couple, my patients, who addressed him effusively. He reciprocated with the same warmth in his greeting. They said to him: "Don Pep, no wonder you are in such good health with this magnificent doctor as your grandson". He was quick to reply: "I'm fine because he has seen me very few times". After laughing, we said goodbye and I asked him how he knew the couple and if any of his relatives had worked with him, in the factory or on the railroad... He answered me, curtly, that he knew them from the town. I was not satisfied with that answer, as I evidenced a greater affective bond in the way they greeted each other. He responded seriously and threateningly to assure me that he would not reveal his secret.... "I knew that this couple had no money to get married, they were good people, and I took care of all their wedding expenses."

Sóller, its orange and lemon groves, its mountains and its port, its people, live and persist thanks to the tourist industry, based on a model of sustainability, and to projects like the one promoted by my wife, María, that allow us to think of a hopeful future so that our cultural, ecological and social assets will last if we share them with all of you. Thank you for visiting us and becoming part of our adventure.

Welcome to your home in the Valley of the Oranges.

-Diego Puig Fortuny