This important construction, which has been declared Local Monument, is inside the World Heritage Urban Historic Centre at Avenue 54 between the streets 33 and 35. This avenue is the city’s most important commercial artery, as well as a pedestrian street best known as the Boulevard. According to the division of the city, the building is located at former 267 and 268 and present-day 1063 and 1064 lots.
The first reference to this construction was found on the Land Register of Cienfuegos West, where the name of José Quesada y Sada appears as the owner of the building, thus explaining the initials on the railings of one of the balconies, along with the year when the construction was finished -1871.

Mr José Quesada y Sada bought the building from Mrs María del Rosario Muñoz, Mr José Pérez Quesada and Mr Miguel Planas Cunill and by inheritance from his wife Mrs Rosario Acevedo. The owner lived in this house for five years until his death on February 21, 1876, leaving the building in his will to Mr Manuel Blanco y Ramos, the owner after whom the building is named.

Manuel Blanco Ramos, who had been born in the province of Ortiguerira, in La Coruna, Spain, was a landowner who lived in this city and who later carried on the construction of the building on the corner of Hourritinier, having his initials also welded on the ironwork of the balconies. Blanco had a high position in the social and political life of Cienfuegos. He was appointed First City Councilor in 1875, Trustee in 1878, Fourth Deputy Mayor in 1888, First Deputy Mayor in 1883, 1885 and 1895 and Chairman of the Board of Employers of the Municipal Hospital in 1890. He dies in La Coruna, Spain, on October 18, 1905 without leaving a will. After some legal action, his sister Mrs Cándida Amalia Blanco and her daughters are declared inheritants to his assets.

The city estate and the property passed down through generations of the Blanco family, until one of them sold it to Simón Vázquez Ferreiro, a lawyer from Manicaragua, as shown on the record of May 30, 1957.

The first floor of the building went through countless transformations from the 1920’s on, while San Fernando Street turned into one of the most important commercial arteries of the city. One of the changes was a modification on its facade in 1925 –which was recently corrected. This building housed the Spanish Bank, Cervantes Bookstore, Casa Record, a milk tank, a drugstore, Casa Arco, the fabric store La Perla, the Provincial Management Office of the CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution), the Catholic Association Caballeros de Colón, the notary’s office of Federico Laredo Bru –president of the Republic for a short time-, the Affiliate University and more recently the Cultural Community Development Center and the Council of Plastic Arts.

Palacio de Blanco is one of the most valuable exponents of Cuban architecture in the 19th century. Its structure designed to surround a square patio shows its constructive richness. This 19th-century building is an example of the most significant architecture in Cienfuegos and the rest of the country thanks to its architectural and constructive value.