A 101-year-old Cuban grandmother wins a court battle and fulfills her family’s dream
María Elena de Cárdenas, a 101-year-old Cuban grandmother and Coral Gables resident, has won a “David versus Goliath” fight in Spain against Alicia Koplowitz Romero de Juseu, one of the wealthiest women in that country who has some ancestral ties to the island.
After six years of fighting for the Marquisate of Bellavista — the title held by a marquis or marquess — the Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that de Cárdenas has “the better and preferred right” to use the noble title. It was granted by King Amadeo I to one of her ancestors, Gabriel de Cardenas y Cardenas.
The court also ruled that Koplowitz, whose fortune is estimated at $2 billion, must pay de Cárdenas for the legal costs of the fight.
This is the third title won by de Cárdenas. She won the Marquisate of Almendares in 2018 and the Marquisate of Campo Florido in 2019. The latter had been held by Alicia Alcocer Koplowitz, niece of Alicia Koplowitz.
With the latest court victory, de Cárdenas fulfilled the promise she made to her father, Luis de Cardenas y Cardenas in 1964, three years after the family came to Miami. She told him that she would recover all the titles to keep alive her family tradition and the love for Cuba as well as the Spanish roots of her ancestors.
“I am still the same, and those titles do not make me better or worse,” de Cardenas told el Nuevo Herald a year ago during an interview in her Coral Gables home.
“The title is an honor that the crown granted to one of my ancestors, which I respect and I am proud to carry,” she said at the time, expressing her gratitude to the Spanish courts for the rulings on her first lawsuit and appeal.
De Cardenas was born in Havana in 1919 to a mother from Seville, Spain.
During the long investigation of historic documents in the fight to recover the titles, which required trips to Spain and Cuba, researchers found links between the two countries and the stories of distinguished members of the de Cardenas family who served as military officers, hacienda owners and governors and were recognized by the Spanish crown.
In the 1840s, Queen Maria Cristina de Borbon granted one of de Cárdenas’ great-grandparents, Ignacio Herrera y O’Farrill, the title of Marquis of Almendares in recognition of his services as a member of the junta that directed the construction of the first railroad in Cuba, a key factor in the development of the island’s sugar industry.
The Marquisate of Almendares later passed to Miguel Mariano Freyre Gomez until 2017, when a Madrid provincial court ruled in favor of de Cárdenas. Freyre was the grandson of Miguel Mariano Gomez, who was president of Cuba from May to December of 1937.
The Marquisate of Campo Florido was granted by King Fernando VII on May 6, 1826, to Miguel de Cardenas y Peñalver, who founded the town of Campo Florido, on the outskirts of Havana, in the 1850s. The town was a commercial hub located between two sugar mills he owned, the San Jose de Miraflores and the San Francisco.
Alicia Alcocer Koplowitz obtained the Campo Florido title in 2003 from her mother, Esther Koplowitz, who had received it from an uncle, José Arturo Romero de Juseu y Armenteros. She lost it in 2018, when the Madrid provincial court ruled that it belonged to de Cárdenas. Alcocer Koplowiz appealed, and the Supreme Court of Spain ratified the ruling in November 2019.
Miami businessman Luis de la Vega, de Cárdenas’ son, expressed the family’s joy at the time.
“For my mother, this court ruling on the Marquisate of Campo Florido is very emotional, because her father had the best right to the title when uncles of Esther Koplowitz claimed several family titles in the 1960s,” he said. “But then came exile ... and so now the Marquisate of Campo Florido returns from Spain to America.”
With the ratifications of her nobility, de Cárdenas has become part of the select group of Cubans who have noble titles, including Maria Teresa Mestre Batista, who is Grand Duchess of Luxembourg through her marriage to Henri, Grand Duke of the tiny European country.
De Cárdenas, known as Manana by her children and grandchildren, enjoys playing the piano and reciting from memory some of the poems by her great-grandfather, Rafael de Cardenas y Cardenas, who also composed several contredances and was a close friend of famed composers Ignacio Cervantes and Manuel Saumell.
Whenever she’s asked how she’s doing, the ever-optimist de Cárdenas answers: “Like the flowers in Spring.”
This story was originally published December 5, 2020 at 3:44 PM.
