Facing the Plaza Mayor in Panamá Viejo, these houses were built by Francisco Terrín. The better houses were usually built from timber and placed wall to wall, with small inner courts, open-air kitchens and separate wings for the servants. Some had ground-floor galleries and balconies, and most had plain exterior walls. The ruins of a few of the fancier stone homes remain. The poor had far simpler dwellings, usually thatched huts built with inexpensive materials such as reeds.