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Aboard the schooner, together with many other emigrants from all Europe seeking their fortune in far countries, is Emil Bentz a young German, who is taking with him all his hopes and wishes indispensable to meet the journey to his future.

In the course of the long days of sailing, Emil meets little all the passengers: businessmen, adventurers, families going to meet with their relatives or simply emigrants like him, wishful to engage in a new life or to look for new opportunities on the other side of the Ocean.
Day by day, Emil realizes to have strong feelings for Maria Hatchmann, the shooner captain’s young and lean daughter: her tenderness, kindness and large blue eyes make him fall deeply in love.
The days follow the nights and the nights follow the days: the mutual liking turns into a deep feeling.

A shining sun, the gentle breeze of the Caribbean and a lot of people are waiting in Puerto Plata harbour for the arrival of the German schooner, loaded with many expectations and humanity.
Emil and Maria fulfill their dreams for love and marry a few month later, around 1865. In the following years they open, near the harbour area, the most elegant hotel in Puerto Plata, were most of the foreign travelers go to.

In 1870 Arturo, their first son, is born followed by three more sons and one daughter.
In the last years of the past century, Augusto Bentz and his brother Rodolfo open a pulpier(grocery store) near the “Guinea” bridge and their business are increasing: at the beginning of this century, together with two associates, Mr. Folch, they buy the ingenio Amistad ( Amistad Sugar Mill), named to honor the brotherly union, near the town of Imbert, and shortly after they adquire the Ingenio Montellano.

The Bentz family is now being part of merchant bourgeoisie of Puerto Plata; things are going very well and the symbols of opulence are evident: Augusto and Rodolfo are the first car owners in Puerto Plata.
Augusto marries in the first year of this century with Carolina Castán, the daughter of a Spanish immigrant. They have 7 children: their family is now very large and Augusto Bentz charges in 1918 the famous Spanish architect Martín Gallart y Canti to build a big residence, the Villa Bentz, presently place of this Amber Museum.

In December of 1919, once the construction finished, the Bentz family takes possession of the new house, a dream great like a white castle.
Augusto Bentz, the head of the family, a short and lean man, with a stern glance but with warm heart, is an exemplary father for his children; Carolina, his wife, short dark-haired and always elegant in her dresses, is so sweet and infinitely forbearing with her creatures.

On January 11th, 1920, the wedding of Luisa, their eldest daughter, with Agustín Puig, is the opportunity for a big party at the villa: the bride, gorgeous in her white-dress,the elegant guests, the children who fill with their laughs and screams the air of joy,the tables covered by Flanders laces, the beautiful plates with silvers covers, all kinds of food, together with Veuve Cliquot champagne and the best brands of rum, whisky and beer…

The elegant building, called at that time La Casa Blanca ( The White House), Neoclassic in style, stands on the West corner of the crossing of Duarte and Emilio Proud’homme streets; it has a wide gallery on three sides with classical columns and its blueprint is in the Puerto Plata style with Spanish tradition: a main building and a wing with bedrooms and utilities on the backside, adjacent to the court.
Classical motifs repeat the ornamental details of iron and wood in friezes, cornices, balconies, ventilators and door-jambs, with some original interpretations in the elements and the decoration of the classical architectural repertoire.

During several years, on every weekend, the Villa becomes lively when all the Puerto Plata “nice people” attend the receptions and the parties given by the Bentz:tastefully dinners on the roof, with a great profusion of the most excellent and delicious pastries and liquors, interlaced flowers, sumptuous and giddy dances in the ballroom: the orchestra is very clever to diffuse harmonious melodies that inebriate everybody’s souls with turning waltzes and mazurkas and that give brilliance to the beauty and the dresses of all the ladies, charming in the air of magic that fell the ambience.

Time seems to forget the daily problems and the Bentz family sails the high waves of opulence.
The first warning of danger appear and make real with the great economic depression in 1929,that force Augusto and Rodolfo to sell their Sugar Mills, due the great world crisis: the sugar price falls from 25 pesos to 1 peso per quintal (100 kg).
Following Augusto’s death in 1933, the Bentz family is forced to lower its level of living and gives for rent the Villa, which will be for several years a Secondary School, attended by all the Puerto Plata bourgeoisie’s children.

Around the middle of the ‘50s is established in the building a school of housewifery, that gives free of charge a succession of very interesting courses, and in 1957 opens its doors a school of painting, that graduates many today well-known artists.
The years after 1961 are for the building a long period ofneglect, abandon and deterioration until 1973, when the Hotel Colonial starts its activity, with the main presence of the many businessmen visiting Puerto Plata.

In 1977 Mr. Aldo Costa  and his wife Didi, an Italian couple established in Puerto Plata from a longtime, buy the property and opens the tourist bazaar boutique.

60 years have passed since the building of the large white Villa and and the entire structure urgently needs a lot of works for its restoration: the Costa family, with its natural Italian artistic mind, realizes to own a great artistic treasure, a unique in the architectural panorama of Puerto Plata, and decides to exhaust its efforts anda lot of money to give again the original look the building.

In 1980 important works are started and, almost  2 years later, Puerto Plata meets again the jewel born in 1919.
On March 30th, 1982, is opened the Amber Museum, the first in the Dominican Republic, that draws not only a lot of tourists but offers itself, in the same time, like a focus for international researches.
During the first months of 1997 almost 80 years after its building, the Villa Bentz is in great array with a second course of works to open the museum’s new department: the elegant Neoclassic structure is now beautiful for the passers-by and the visitors, the inner halls evoke the memory of the ancient parties, many pieces of art and wonderful details adorn every corner of the building, the splendid scientific collections of amber are on display in a very original way.

By night, under the moonlight and gentle Caribbean breeze, in the deep silence of the asleep city, could hear, around the large halls of the Villa, light melodies of waltz and the gentle clinking of two glasses with champagne, to celebrate and welcome the memory for the new century.