Hacienda Santa Clara was established ca. 1820  and acquired ca. 1860 by Corsican immigrant Domingo Mariani Dominicci (1815-1902), who arrived in Puerto Rico in 1839.  Mariani Dominici married three times, first to Maria Venancia Cuprill (1834-1864) natural daughter of Leonor Cuprill. Their marriage was celebrated in "articulo mortis" after she gave birth to their fourth child.  His second marriage was to Maria Micaela (Mariana) Mariani, natural daughter of his cousin Tomasa Mariani with whom he had four more children.  His third marriage was to Ursula Bochecampie Defendini from which marriage three children were born.

Mariani Dominici also got to own Hacienda Asunción and Hacienda Santa Rita. Together with his nephews Tomás (1835-1918) and Santiago Pietri Mariani, they established ca. 1879 the since disappeared Hacienda Esperanza in Barrio Guilarte of Adjuntas.  Esperanza was the main responsibility of Santiago while Tomás was responsible for the administration of Santa Clara. When the estate of Domingo Mariani Dominicci was settled ca. 1920, Hacienda Santa Clara II was established some 2 km away on five hundred seventy six acres of land segregated from the then nine hundred seventeen acre Hacienda Santa Clara.

Hacienda Santa Clara was located at PR-372 km 19 in Barrio Rio Prieto of Yauco and consisted of some one thousand three hundred cuerdas ca. 1895. In 1977 it was photographed by Jack E. Boucher as part of the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) report available at the Library of Congress.  The pictures in the gallery below are part of a 1987 study by Archeologist Dr. Luis Pumarada O'Neill, on file at the Puerto Rico State Historic Preservation Office.  According to Pumarada O'Neill, in 1978 Hacienda Santa Clara was the best remaining example of a 19th Century coffee hacienda in Puerto Rico.  

After almost fifty years since it last produced coffee, Pablo Muñoz a descendant of the Mariani family, has resumed operations and is producing coffee grown at Hacienda Santa Clara under the name Café Cuatro Sombras.  Today, one of the oldest remaining coffee production facilities on the island, still has the water wheel with all its gears and machinery used in its glory days.  It is the only wooden water powered mill (tahona) known to be in its original condition.  Also remaining is the chimney of the sugar mill used in processing sugarcane.