The Santa Maria Museum is housed in a house in the centre of Santo Espírito parish. Set in a two-story building, it has an annexe that serves as a reserve. This property built in the early twentieth century denotes in its architecture some of the changes suffered over time, can not be considered as a typical rural house.
Of the most relevant architectural elements, the two tubular chimneys and the bulging shape of the oven stand out, characteristic elements of rural Mariense architecture. In the nineties of the twentieth century, this property underwent adaptation works for the new function that is committed to it. The history of the Santa Maria Museum goes back to the late 1960s and early 1990s at the initiative of the parish priest of Santo Espírito José Maria Amaral, who began an exhaustive collection of pieces from the community to preserve your identity.
Inaugurating the then Holy Spirit Ethnographic and Parish Museum, later and already in the tutelage of Culture passed the Ethnographic House and in 1996, was officially inaugurated as the Museum of Santa Maria Island.