Cuban Plantation Owner's House

I needed a house which was a little grander than the others in my small Cuban settlement; I wanted something that would pass as the planation owner's residence. I made the basic structure from foamboard and went for the simplest house shape that you could imagine. The technique for making nice neat joints at the corners is described in my description of building a Spanish Colonial Church here on my blog.  I have also included strengthening braces at the corners as you can see here:

I fixed this basic structure onto a baseboard before adding the roof which is plastic card  slate from the Wills range of model railway accessories. The ridge tile is simply a length of bamboo skewer. I also used skewers to make the supporting columns for the veranda roof:

Another view to give you an idea of the completed work so far:

I spray painted the whole thing in white undercoat to blend together the different textures and colours of the various materials that I had used. I sprayed about three coats to get a nice even finish, once that was done I painted the roof and the veranda roof in a terracotta colour and I added strips of plastic on the gable ends and across the front and back of the building to add interest:

Windows and doors were made very simply by painting and drawing them onto heavy duty cartridge paper. This is a technique I use a lot and I often add layers or strips of cartridge paper to give depth to the different parts. They were then glued in place and window ledges were added later using painted matchsticks.

When I had been looking at Spanish colonial buildings, and particularly those in Cuba, I noticed that there was a great liking for ornate railings on balconies and verandas. To represent this feature I bought a foot or so of lace ribbon from a haberdashery shop; I soaked it in pva glue and hung it up to dry. Once the glue had set overnight I was left with a rigid sheet:

The sheet of lace was then easily cut to size, painted and then glued into place. The effect was exactly what I had been after!

Another view of the finished building clearly showing the "lace" railings round the veranda and the window ledges that I had already added:

A final front view of the plantation owner's house ready for him to move in and ready for the Cuban forces to assault and burn down!

Buildings and Crops for my Ten Years War in Cuba Project

Once my jungle was complete it was time to add a few buildings and fields to represent the plantations and agricultural settlements around which much of the war was to revolve. First of all I made a couple of shacks which would have housed slaves and agricultural labourers:

Here is a close up of one of the shacks, you can see them both in views of the completed jungle. Made from foam board to a very simple design with card and coffee stirrers. The roof was made from card and covered with pva glue and raffia.

I also built a small jungle hut; it can either be used as part of the main settlement or set off deep in the jungle as a base for some of the Cuban insurgents:

Again I used a very simple construction method, in this case everything was based on an empty Pringles tube! I cut the tube down to size, covered it with pva glue and lengths of skewers held in place with elastic bands until the glue dried. A simple card roof was added and to this I glued palm leaf shaped pieces of painted card; detailing was finished with a black felt tipped pen.

The agricultural economy was crucial to Spain and in efforts to protect this source of wealth the armed forces constructed many blockhouses - later on in the was a whole line of them was constructed (the Trocha) cutting the island into two and isolating the rebels at the Eastern end.

I used foam board again with coffee stirrers for the door and lining the loopholes. The roof was made with corrugated card glued into place, painted and detailed with a felt tipped pen as before.

That completed my initial settlement though I plan to add more as the project progresses; ideally I would like another couple of huts, a church and perhaps a more substantial plantation owners house. It would also be interesting to build a mill and boiling house since these were vital buildings on any plantation, but that's in the future.  When I eventually get round to building them I will feature them here but for the moment the next thing I needed was fields or crops.

Sugar cane was crucial to the Cuban economy and was a source of great wealth for the Spanish Government, so a field of the stuff was next on my list:

I made it by drilling rather a lot of holes in a piece of wood ! Into these I glued pieces of skewer which I had painted and partially split at one end; then, very painstakingly I glued leaves into the split ends. Not strictly botanically accurate but good enough for my purposes and good enough to restrict the passage of troops just like the real thing.

Various bits and pieces of greenery that I had left from making the jungle were glued to another base to make a small field of mixed crops. This was an essential part of any plantation since the crops were used to feed the slaves and other workers:

A final addition, and essential for the diets of the agricultural population, were plantains or bananas to you and I. Another base board was drilled and then filled with suitable looking bits and pieces from my jungle raw materials. Once the glue was dry I had the fiddly job of painting the appropriate parts bright yellow to represent my bananas:







Again they may not be entirely correct from a botanist's point of view.....but hey! Making model bananas is not something that I do every day.