Postby TriP » March 19th, 2015, 10:34 pm
Local La Vega Estate ~ Founder Bertram Manhin
From Master Sharpshooter to Plant Collector - An interview with the founder of La Vega Estate - Bertram Manhin
It's not very often that the identities of a famous sportsman, successful businessman, plant collector and private estate owner can be combined in one person, but surprisingly, in the already tiny population of Chinese-Trinidadians, one such person can be found. He is Bertram Manhin, who in his youth represented Trinidad and Tobago at the Olympics as a marksman, who in his 50s began to collect different types of rare plants from all over the world, and who together with his family manages the 250-acre La Vega Estate.
When you first meet Bert Manhin, your immediate impression is of a kindly, amiable and approachable old Chinese man. Not only can you not tell that he is over 80 years old, there is also none of the swagger usually associated with the famous sports star or the well-known businessman.
Mr. Manhin was born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1934 to a Chinese Trinidadian family, and given the Chinese name of Rong Peng, which means “honour to the nation”. His father came to Trinidad from China’s Guangdong Province in the 1920s to seek his fortune, while his mother was the descendant of earlier Chinese immigrants to Trinidad.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Hall-of-Fame Sharpshooter
In 1952, while still in secondary school, Manhin began to get involved with the sport of shooting. It was a chance opportunity; he began to attend training at the shooting club in Port-of-Spain in his spare time, having been introduced to it by a friend. He could not have known at the time that this hobby of his would follow him for over 50 years, making him a true “honour to the nation”.
From 1963 to 1999 the quiet and soft spoken marksman won the T&T pistol championship title on numerous occasions. During that period, Manhin represented the country at regional and international games including the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) and Commonwealth Games.[i] At the CAC Games, Manhin accumulated a total of six medals (1 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronze). And at the 1966 edition of these Games, he rose to fame when he became the first national to win a gold medal in pistol shooting at the Games after winning the Match Pistol event.
Two years later Manhin made a bid to claim a medal at the world’s most prestigious international sporting games – the Olympics. That year he went down in local history books as one of two people who represented the country in shooting for the first time at the Games held in Mexico, the other person being Hugh Homer. However, he was eliminated in the preliminary round of the free pistol after finishing 38th with 539 points.
Ten years later however, Manhin’s Olympic disappointment would be overshadowed at the 1978 Commonwealth Games hosted in Edmonton, Canada, when he again etched his name into local history by becoming the first national to win a medal at the Games after winning a bronze medal in the Free Pistol with 536 points. This stood as his biggest international feat throughout his career.
When the 1998 CAC Games were held in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Manhin failed to qualify, prompting him to retire from international competition.
A hobby that “went over board”
In 1983, Manhin, who had begun to consider his retirement, purchased the 250-acre La Vega Estate in central Trinidad. “It was originally a cocoa plantation; there were cocoa trees all across the fields and hills. At the time I just wanted to have a plot of land to call my own, so after I retired I could raise some plants. I never thought of developing La Vega Estate into what it is now.”
‘A plot of land to raise a few plants’ sounds like a typical wish for a middle-class retiree. However, just like his shooting that started out as a simple hobby, in the subsequent 30 years ‘raising a few plants’ became a full-on career that developed almost to extremes. “It is just a hobby that went over board.” Manhin laughed and said.
Since then he has, with great zeal, been seeking out different equatorial garden plants and fruits from all over the world, trying to have them introduced to the La Vega Estate. In addition to the part of the estate that is open to the public, there is also a large area dedicated to Manhin’s private collection of plants.
He collected dongs from Taiwan and planted 200 carambola trees. By the process of elimination and aided by Robert Barnum and two other fruit experts from the Rare Fruit Council of America, he selected three trees from which worthwhile grafts were made. In 1985 Manhin secured two seeds of the dwarf pommecythere from a nursery in Thailand. The dwarf pommecythere trees in T&T, Grenada, and indeed the Caribbean have been traced back to these two seeds. Among the many fruit trees he imported were peewah, camu camu, sweet passion fruit and amazon grape.
Manhin also introduced the dwarf white frangipani to T&T in 1990. The yellow leaf duranta was introduced in 1993 which proved to be exceedingly popular. In the early 90’s he also introduced almost 20 different varieties of bougainvilleas including the Thai white, lavender splash and Thai gold. There are many more fruit trees in his collection and several of them hold the promise to produce excellent fruits. On an almost daily basis Manhin researches new tropical trees, ornamental plants and exotic fruits worldwide.
Manhin was honoured on December 28, 2011 by the Citizens for a Better Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT) with an International Year of Forests Award for his contribution towards preserving and enhancing the biodiversity of plants in T&T.
A Nature & Recreation Park
With all this growing and blossoming, a garden centre was set up in San Fernando in 1986. This outlet carries the full range of plants grown at the estate and a great assortment of gardening supplies. As time went by, curious visitors and customers began visiting the estate even though it was not yet open to the public. In 1988, a structure was built to house a garden centre and accommodate visitors; it has expanded to more than 4 times its original size.
The Nature & Recreation Park is a result of Manhin’s tremendous fondness of nature and the outdoors. His first project was in an area almost completely surrounded by naturally occurring water where graceful bamboo arched overhead to form a cosy retreat. After some minimal clearing and pruning, a sandy floor was installed, followed by 2 spacious thatched huts and landscaping. This cool and peaceful sanctuary is known as “Bamboo Nursery”, it remains one of our visitors’ favourite locations at the estate. This was followed by the development of many other areas including Meditation Garden, Riverside and Playing Field.
“We are really very lucky.”
On the topic of the running of the estate, Manhin admitted that the greatest difficulty is the lack of manpower, but that the support of his family members has been the greatest and most valuable asset. During those 30 years, not only did his wife sell off the bookshop she had been running for many years to focus on helping with the La Vega Estate, his children and grandchildren (who had grown up on the estate) both loved the place and were willing to assist with the management of it. When speaking about being able to live and work together with their children and grandchildren, Manhin and his wife seemed filled with incomparable happiness. “We are really very lucky.”
“Our goal from now on is to open up to eco-tourism; there’s a big area of land that can be used for that. A lot of visitors also make suggestions, like ‘why don’t you open a restaurant’ and such. But the running of this place depends on just this one family, so everything takes time. But we have faith that the La Vega Estate will become more and more beautiful.”
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