History

Can Gemenut is a traditional Catalan farmhouse, or masia, built for a farming family. Although it is not known precisely, the old house was probably constructed in the 1800s. The original house was modest in size, with a gabled roof and, on each side of the entrance, there were pig pens and the coach house where a cart would be kept. The house remained this way until

the 1950s when it was renovated and extended

with a two-storey structure at the front. In

2006, many of the original elements of the

building which had been spoiled by the work

in the 1950s were restored.

Two wells still exist on the property. One of these supplied the laundry room where clothes were washed. Water from the wells was also used for domestic purposes and for watering the kitchen garden via pipes made of bricks (part of which can still be seen). Next to the laundry room there is 'la comuna' (a communal toilet) just as it was when it was still being used fifty years ago, and now is a garden wc. In the present-day living room, as in the kitchen, there is a beautiful red-tiled, cross-vaulted ceiling. In the old coach house, now the kitchen/dining room of El Cau, the ceiling is in the style of the basket-handle vault. In the kitchen, to the left of the fireplace, there was an oven for baking bread which fell into disuse many years ago. There was also a vat for olive oil, now half hidden by the wall.

Maxima Cruañas the Juanals1932. They had two

children, Joan and Ramiro, whoCan Gemena were born.

The family spent the cultivation of vegetables and

_cc781905- 5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde- 3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b- 136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5c de-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde- 3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b- 136bad5cf58d_ months later he was called to the front. I survived the battles that accompanied the entry of nationals in Catalonia and returned home in 1939, although for a short time. The Franco regime imprisoned him for four years due to its vincvulation policy. He returned home, this time until his death in 1955. His wife, Maxima, was having to throw two small children alone on the farm and during the war and after the war and lived in Can Gemena until 1984.