Casa de Montejo

Casa de Montejo was built in 1549 for the Spanish conquistador family credited with founding Mérida, and its Plateresque stone facade is among the most striking pieces of civil colonial architecture in the Americas. Carved into the entrance surround are figures of Spanish conquistadors standing triumphantly atop the heads of subdued indigenous warriors, an unusually explicit and unsettling visual statement of conquest that has made the facade both a historical landmark and a subject of ongoing discussion about how colonial violence is memorialized in public space. The building has changed hands and functions repeatedly since the 16th century, and today its ground floor houses a branch of Banamex bank along with a small, free museum operated by the Fomento Cultural Banamex that preserves several period rooms with colonial and 19th-century furnishings. Visitors typically spend 20 to 30 minutes viewing the facade from the plaza and, when open, walking through the ground-floor museum rooms. The facade itself is visible and photographable at any hour from Plaza Grande, while the interior museum keeps more limited hours tied to the bank's operating schedule.