​​​Location: Manatí
Date Established: Late 1870s
Date Ceased Operations: 1922
Annual Production Graph: N/A
Average Annual Production: N/A 
Best Production Year: N/A
Family Ownership: Brunet

Josep Bruno Brunet Costas (1802-1832) was a Spanish immigrant from Blanes, Girona, Catalonia who during the first quarter of the 19th Century established himself in San Juan where he was a successful merchant.  Brunet Costas married also Catalonian Maria Josepha Antonia Urgell Roure (1804- ) and had three daughters and one son named Francisco José Juan Brunet Urgell (1831-1887).  Francisco Brunett Urgell came to Puerto Rico to take care of the estate left him by his father José Brunet which included land he had acquired in Manatí. In 1860 Brunet Urgell settled as a merchant in Manati and established a "trapiche" or sugar factory with an oxen driven in the land inherited from his father.  In 1872 he upgraded the sugar factory when a steam mill was installed.  In Manatí he married also Catalonian immigrant from Barcelona Luisa Guaytá Munté.  Brunet Urgell consolidated the land he inherited with those inherited by his wife giving the new estate the name La Luisa in his wife's honor.

Francisco Brunet Urgell and Luisa Guaytá Munté had eight children, six of which survived to make up the estate after his death in 1887.  

1. Luisa Brunet Guaytá (1871-1949) who married Spanish immigrant from La Palma in the Canary Islands Abelardo de la Aba Trujillo (1865-1923) who was the sugar mill's manager

2. Josefa Brunet-Guaytá (1873-1955) who never married

3. Rosa Brunet Guaytá (1874-1957) who in 1911 married Salvador Sierra Amalbert

4. Francisco Brunet Guaytá (1877-1921) who in 1908 married Rita Calaf Collazo (1884-1976) the daughter of Federico Calaf Rivera (1845-1924) owner of Central Monserrate

5. Antonio León Brunet Guaytá (1878-1879)

6. Micaela Brunet Guaytá (1879-1933) who married Fernando Geigel Sabat

7. Felix Brunet Guytá (1880-1884)

8. Rosenda Brunet Guaytá (1887-1945) who in 1914 married Adolfo de Hostos y de Ayala (1887-1982) son of Eugenio Maria de Hostos

A few years after upgrading the sugar factory with a steam mill, additional and modern machinery was installed elevating La Luisa to a central sugar mill.  It is uncertain the exact year when la Luisa became a central sugar mill, but since it is well known the first one in Puerto Rico was Central San Vicente in 1873, it has to have been at a later date in the 1870s at the earliest.  After Brunet Urgell's death in 1877, administration and operation of the hacienda/sugar mill remained in the hands of his estate represented by his eldest son Francisco Brunet Guaytá. 

According to José Ferreras Pagán in his book Biografía de las Riquezas de Puerto Rico, in 1902 Central La Luisa consisted of some eight hundred acres including land of the defunct Hacienda Media Luna on lease.  The land controlled by Central La Luisa extended throughout the Barrios Bajura, Punta, Boca, Tierras Nuevas, Bajura Afuera and Tierras Nuevas Poniente of Manatí.  It was adjacent to Hacienda La Esperanza on the north and west and to lands of Central Monserrate.  It used water from the Manatí River which was some 400m from the mill.  There is still a community named La Luisa in Manati in the immediacies of where the sugar mill was located.

There are no available production numbers for this sugar mill but Ferreras Pagán states in his book that it employed approximately one hundred workers and produced some 6,500 bags of sugar annually, each bag consisting of 2½ quintals.  Ferreras Pagán also states that Central La Luisa had its own railroad system to transport sugarcane from the fields to the sugar mill.

In 1922, Federico Calaf Rivera signed a six year lease of La Luisa with the Sucn. Francisco Brunet Urgell of which his daughter Rita Calaf Collazo was a member of as the widow of Francisco Brunet Guaytá.  The lease, which marked the end of La Luisa as an independent sugar mill, was sublet to Julián Gandia Córdova, the administrator of Central Monserrate, where sugarcane previously grown at La Luisa was then processed. 

The residence in downtown Manatí built by Francisco Brunet Urgell in 1860 and later the residence of his son Francisco Brunet Guaytá burned down a few years ago.  However, thanks to the courtesy of José L. Sierra, grandson of Luisa Brunet Guaytá, there are three photos of the house in the gallery below.  In the picture with the family gathered around the piano, the gentleman with the mustache is Francisco Brunet Guaytá. All the vintage pictures below were provided by José L. Sierra, the drone pictures were taken in 2022 by and made available courtesy of Carlos Alemán.