María Elena de Cárdenas Achieves Her Third Marquisate at 101 Years Old

December 3, 2020

The Cuban-Spanish aristocrat María Elena de Cárdenas, to whom Spain's Justice system has just recognized her right to the marquisate of Bellavista, until now in the possession of businesswoman Alicia Koplowitz, said she feels "very happy" for having fulfilled a promise made to her father more than 50 years ago.

Luis de la Vega, son of the three-time marquess who is 101 years old and resides in Coral Gables (Miami-Dade), told EFE that his mother received with joy the news that Spain's Supreme Court ruled in her favor in the lawsuit for the marquisate of Bellavista.

This thus ends successfully a legal battle initiated more than six years ago to recover the marquisates of Bellavista, Campo Florido and Almendares, EFE reported.

The father of "Manana" Cárdenas, Luis de Cárdenas y Cárdenas, asked her in 1964 that to the extent possible she try to recover the family titles which, due to various circumstances, including the triumph of the Revolution in Cuba in 1959, were in other hands.

Two of "Manana's" three noble titles, who turned 101 on June 5th of this year, were in the hands of the Koplowitz family, and the third in the hands of Miguel Mariano Freite Gómez.

The marquisate of Campo Florido, which the Cuban-Spanish aristocrat received in 2019 by a ruling of Spain's Supreme Court, was previously in the hands of Alicia Alcocer Koplowitz, niece of Alicia Koplowitz.

That marquisate was granted by King Ferdinand VII in 1826 to Miguel de Cárdenas y Peñalver and that of Bellavista was granted by Amadeo I to Gabriel de Cárdenas y Cárdenas.

The now eighth marquess of Bellavista won at first instance against Alicia Koplowitz, but the businesswoman appealed the ruling before the Provincial Court of Madrid, where "Manana" won again.

Koplowitz then appealed before Spain's Supreme Court, where she lost once again.

The high court sided with Cárdenas by maintaining that her father, Luis de Cárdenas y Cárdenas, was the one with the better right to the title when it was restored in 1919 and later in 1962 when Koplowitz's uncle, José Arturo Romero de Juseu Armenteros, won it in a ruling against Carlos de Barberías y Lombillo.

The Supreme Court imposed on Koplowitz to pay María Elena de Cárdenas all the costs incurred by her during the process, said Luis de la Vega.

The new marquess of Bellavista "feels very grateful to Spanish Justice, in which she was always confident," as well as to her lawyer, Álvaro López Becerra de Casanova, an expert in procedural and noble law.

"Manana," a lucid woman of great affability, obtained Spanish nationality in 2018.

In an interview with EFE that same year, she recalled that when she was a child she would tell her mother that she wanted to be Sevillian like her and her mother would answer that she was "half and half."

Her family, both in Cuba and in Miami, where they settled after the Revolution, never stopped feeling Spanish.

"Many Spaniards are not aware of the luck they have in belonging to a generous and committed nation as few are, where its people are so charming and the quality of life incomparable," she emphasized then.