Quinta do Bom Despacho is a family business focused on positive impact. We believe that small businesses integrated into the community, with short, localised value chains, are the skeleton of a regenerative economy.

Vision icon

Vision

Motivate daily action for sustainability, happiness and well-being.

To provide comfortable, ecological spaces that people can enjoy and learn from during their time with us.

Vision icon

Mission

Vision icon

Values

AuthenticitySimplicityHonesty
CollaborationOptimismRespect
Responsibility

Our team

Six people make things happen around here.
We all share the understanding that life should be simple and uncomplicated, and that sustainability is achieved on a daily basis.

Imagem Membro Joana +
X Imagem Membro Joana Suitcase icon Co-Founder and Head Gardener Background icon Agroecology and Sustainable Development Language icon
PTENFRESIND
Talk icon Plants Quote icon
Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony Mahatma Gandhi
Imagem Membro Jaime +
X Imagem Membro Jaime Suitcase icon Director of accounting, purchasing, customer service and reservations Background icon Music, telecoms, accommodation management Language icon
PTENFR
Talk icon Anything Quote icon
With great power comes great responsibility Ben Parker em Homem-Aranha
Imagem Membro Tânia +
X Imagem Membro Tânia Suitcase icon Community Manager Background icon Entrepreneurship, Property Language icon
PTENFR
Talk icon Hiking, Music, Crafts Quote icon
Life is what we make of it. The journeys are the travellers. What we see is not what we see, but what we are. Fernando Pessoa
Imagem Membro Manuel +
X Imagem Membro Manuel Suitcase icon Landscaper and Project Manager Background icon Landscape Architecture, Agroecology Language icon
PTEN
Talk icon Azores, History, Plants Quote icon
The island is the size we want it to be.
Imagem Membro Rita +
X Imagem Membro Rita Suitcase icon Office Manager Background icon Administrative, Graphic Design Language icon
PTEN
Talk icon Music, crochet, crafts Quote icon
Train your mind to see the good in every situation
Imagem Membro Marco +
X Imagem Membro Marco Suitcase icon Communications Director Background icon Communication, Marketing, Public Relations Language icon
PTENFRDE
Talk icon Business, entrepreneurship, law, marketing, technology Quote icon
The most important thing in communication is to listen to what is not being said. Peter Drucker

Our space

1 Entrance garden 2 Office & reception 3 Clothes rack 4 Car park (north) 5 Main house 6 Barbecue & terrace 7 Winter garden 8 Workshop & nursery 9 Chicken coop 10 Bonfire 11 Garden of the senses 12 Flowery meadow 13 Edible forest
Mapa da Quinta
14 Compost & green waste 15 Vegetable garden & living hut 16 Phytoremediation plant 17 Endemic forest 18 Natural pool 19 Technical area 20 Orange grove 21 Lawn 22 Community bar 23 Dry bathroom 24 Car park (south) 25 Leisure area

Our history

400
years of family heritage

Quinta do Bom Despacho is a name that goes back to the century. XVII and whose story begins with Gaspar Dias, a successful Jewish merchant and ancestor of the Borges Coutinho family. Gaspar Dias and his family were of Jewish descent, which made him a regular target of the Inquisition and a barrier to integration into the society of the time.

They needed a “Royal Charter for the Cleansing of Blood”, which conferred on them the status of New Christians. Gaspar Dias made a promise to build the “Ermida do Bom Despacho” (Chapel of the Good Dispatch) when he obtained this letter, which was essential to his good name. Gaspar’s promise was later fulfilled and the chapel was built by his descendants, as well as the house that still exists today, leaving the “Paim” area known as “the place of Bom Despacho”.

Unfortunately, the chapel was destroyed in the mid-19th century, but the name remained. Even today, “Bom Despacho” is used to refer to the house and the land that surrounds it. Although it remained in the same family for more than 400 years, Quinta do Bom Despacho was uninhabited for many years and degraded to a state of ruin by the end of the 20th century. XX.

40
years of new generations

António Eduardo Borges Coutinho, the second grandson of the 2nd Marquis of Praia and Monforte (better known to us as “avô Toni”), inherited Quinta do Bom Despacho. He decided to restore it as a family home when the Marquês da Praia palace in the centre of Ponta Delgada was expropriated.

The restoration work took place between 1981 and 1984, under his direction and that of his two sons, António and Francisco, who had recently returned from military service in Angola and Mozambique.

In the spring of 1984, Quinta do Bom Despacho was ready. Francisco, his wife and two daughters were the first to sleep in the “new house”. Shortly afterwards, his brother Antonio and his family gathered in the west wing. The parents (António and Conceição) settled on the ground floor of the manor house they shared with their daughters in the summer. For more than two decades, the property was a winter refuge for those who lived there and a summer paradise for an army of grandchildren, cousins and uncles, lunches on hot days and long family afternoons and evenings.

4
people from a young family

In 2014, Joana and Susana, two of António Borges Coutinho’s twelve grandchildren, set off a new cycle for the property and the family by proposing an innovative project: transforming the property into an Eco-Tourism lodge. Major work was carried out on the house and its exterior to modernise the infrastructure and create extensive gardens with ecological vegetable plots and permaculture design, which allow the space to offer environmental education.

On the Summer Solstice of 2015, Quinta do Bom Despacho opened its doors to the public and welcomed its first guests. Since then Susana has left to explore the world outside the island and the Quinta has been run by Joana and her husband Jaime, alongside their two sons Francisco and Manuel.

Today, Quinta do Bom Despacho is a benchmark for sustainability on the island and in the archipelago. We are proud of the history of the family and the manor house, and now also of conscious entrepreneurship.

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