In the first half of the nineteenth century, Franc...

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Francisco Mateo de Murga y Michelena, a rich Basque financier, had an extramarital scuffle with the tobacconist Benita Ortega y Arregui, from whom Raimunda Osorio and Ortega was born.





Between 1877 and 1900, they built the Palacio de Linares on an old cereal warehouse. The works cost three million pesetas ( 18,000), a real fortune for the time.

The couple got a "casti convivere" bull from Pope Pius IX that allowed them to continue their marriage as long as they had no offspring. Legend has it that a daughter was born from marriage, "Raimundita", who lived walled inside the palace to prevent anyone from knowing her existence. The girl did not reach adolescence and was buried in the palace gardens.



The palace was never used again as a residence and in 1992 it was inaugurated as the current House of America.