XC. Tall Tales from Taal, Part Five: The Second Villavicencio House

To the left of the First Villavicencio House, a.k.a. Casa Villavicencio, is a yard where stands a bronze bust of Gliceria Marella de Villavicencio, on whose base is a stone marker erected by the National Historical Institute in 1985

and whose Tagalog inscription translates as

GLICERIA MARELLA DE VILLAVICENCIO

(1852-1929)

Born in Taal, Batangas on 13 May 1852. Popularly known as “Aling Eriang” [“Aunt Eriang”] and acknowledged to be one of the heroes of the 1896 revolution, because of her moral and material support for the revolutionaries. Her house served as the headquarters during the revolution. She donated her sea vessel the “Bulusan” to the revolutionary cause, which the revolutionaries converted into a battleship. Died on 28 September 1929.

To the right of the First Villavicencio House, beyond another side yard, is what can be logically referred to as the Second Villavicencio House.  This house was built by Eulalio Villavicencio as a wedding gift for his young bride, the nineteen-year-old Gliceria Marella, whom he married in October 1871.

While Eulalio already had a very fine house to begin with (the one that we had just visited), presumably there were other family members living there (perhaps Eulalio’s aged parents were still alive, or maybe he had one or two spinster sisters), rendering it rather un-ideal for starting a family with his equally very independently wealthy young bride.  Therefore, he had this new house constructed right next door, originally connected to the older house at their rears (the respective kitchen-utility areas) by an elevated bridge.

The bridge is gone now, but the two houses, inherited by different sets of Villavicencio descendants, are still connected, at least by name: this newer house is now also referred to as “The Villavicencio Wedding Gift House,” to differentiate it from the older “Casa Villavicencio.”

Despite the generational gap between these two houses – at least twenty-five years probably separates their original constructions – they are extremely similar in plan and design.  One marked difference is that although the Second House also has a (slightly wider) three-bay façade, it is more symmetric than Casa Villavicencio’s – its two main doors are on the ground floor’s left and right bays, with the third member, the wrought iron grilled window, in the center bay instead of to one side.

We take the door on the right, and enter a long vestibule, very similar to the one in Casa Villavicencio.  Likewise, there is a ground floor elevated room, enclosed by sliding capiz window panels, but here it is on the left as one enters.  Here is how the passageway looks like from the far end.

At the end of the vestibule, tile-paved stone steps lead up to higher levels.  On the right side is a foyer, directly in front of the double doors, seen shut in the next photo, leading to the elevated room.

Presumably, this foyer is where the family’s tenants and other employees waited to make their appointments with the master, who conducted his business in the room – functionally a home office.  The open doors at the far end of this foyer lead to the other side of the ground floor, accessed from the main door on the left side of the façade.  Further beyond is the garden outside.

Instead of joining the queue of tenants in this foyer, we walk up a bit more to the landing at the base of the grand staircase, and, just as we did in the First House, consider resting on this gallinera bench on the right

and hanging our hat and cane on the hall tree.  The oval mirror is also useful to check and freshen up before meeting our hosts upstairs.

So far, everything feels a lot like the ground floor of Casa Villavicencio next door.  The wooden single-flight staircase is very similar as well.

though probably just slightly less steep.

The walls that enclose the staircase from above – now where have I seen these before?

It seems that the Villavicencio widow and children (Eulalio had died in February 1898) were enthusiastic adherents of the new Art Nouveau style.  Like the First Villavicencio House, this house’s entire second floor was redecorated in this manner, presumably also by the artist Emilio Alvero, for the one night-visit of the American Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison in 1910.

Upon emergence from the staircase, one steps into an antesala, again very similar to, but slightly larger than, the one next door.

Lest guests forget whose house they have entered, reproductions of Eulalio’s and Gliceria’s portraits by Juan Luna also hang from the walls of the antesala, flanking the entrance to the main living room.

And in case one needs to hang up more hats and canes and freshen up some more, a more slender type of hall tree stands in one corner.

This antesala’s balconies look out to the garden outside, on the left side of the house

and its spacious seating area

also features an antique marble-topped round table in the center.

Going through the double doors from the antesala towards the front of the house, one enters a sala, larger and even more generously furnished than its equivalent in Casa Villavicencio. There are even more seating options here, including this suite of “butaca” lounging chairs and “mariposa” sofa, arranged around a green marble-topped round table.

The biggest difference between the Villavicencio Gift House and Casa Villavicencio is that while the latter has a closeable volada (gallery) separating the sala from the exterior of the house in front, the former dispenses with this early 19^th century convention and instead features three sets of sliding windows (corresponding to the three-bayed façade) that directly open from the sala onto a view of the main street below.

But the same balconies seen earlier in the antesala also feature here, on either side of a large 19^th century-style Venetian-type mirror, looking onto the garden on the left of the house.

And in case you missed it, let me point out the monograms of various Villavicencio family members above each panel along the sala’s perimeter.

In the same position its counterpart was in a corner of the Casa Villavicencio sala is this upright piano.

And lighting up this entire space is this Victorian-style pink-tinted chandelier, suspended from the center of a sumptuous and verdant painted ceiling.

Like in Casa Villavicencio, the sala communicates directly with a bedroom, entered from two sets of louvered double doors, those on the left side being adjacent to the piano.

This bedroom had, among other pieces, this 1930’s Art Deco dressed with a large arched mirror

and this oil lamp on a small table in the corner.

In between the two sets of double doors from the sala was an ornate gold-leafed urna, empty at the time I photographed it, positioned on top of a specimen of the eponymous Batangas altar table.

And in another corner was this double-arched-mirrored narra aparador with an undulating crown.

The other bedroom connected directly to this one, just as those in Casa Villavicencio. And, as if to induce déjà vu some more, it could also be entered from the antesala, from the double doors to the left of Gliceria’s portrait and after making a U-turn from the staircase.

In this bedroom were, among other pieces, this elaborate narra aparador with fancifully-shaped mirror panels and an even more eccentric crown

and this comparatively more modest “tambol” (mirror-less) double-door aparador in another corner.

Stepping back out through these double doors

we try to make our way to the dining room, accessed through another set of double doors in another corner of the antesala, after making a U-turn to the right after emerging from the staircase.

While the twelve-seater dining furniture set does not seem to be original to the house (or appeared to be very freshly-restored when I saw it), it is more or less appropriate for the space, which is not only larger but also more formal in feel than its older counterpart next door.

A variety of different kinds of period lighting illuminates the diners at night, and a lansena (sideboard cabinet) stands at the end of the room, flanked by a pair of windows that provide generous natural light during the day.

The only other furniture piece in this dining room was a tall platera (plate display cabinet), not yet filled up when I shot this last photo.

And thus ends our visit to the Second a.k.a. Wedding Gift a.k.a. Copycat (not at all denigratory in this case) Villavicencio ancestral house.

[Continued here.]

Originally published on 27 September 2009.  All text and photos copyright ©2009 by Leo D Cloma. The moral right of Leo D Cloma to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

LXXXV. Tall Tales from Taal, Part Two: The Domingo and Maria Ilagan House

The nice thing about Taal, apart from the fact that there are so many ancestral houses still standing, is that several of them are regularly open to the public. Since those are quite accessible, we first visit one that usually isn’t. On my first visit to Taal in September 2003, I stood on Calle M. Agoncillo, the main road that cuts through town, looking uphill in the direction of the Basilica (See Part One of this series).

Among this row of houses on the right side, is this anonymous house at the near end.

The house at the far end is this beautiful and imposing house, with a large ground floor garage and azotea overhead. This is the late 19^th century Ylagan House.

In between these two structures , near-adjoining the Ylagan House, and at the corner of Calle M. Agoncillo and Calle G. Marella

is an ancestral house in less than pristine state.

On my next visit in December 2006, I was surprised to behold this same structure, now thoroughly restored!

The previous gray and faded façade was now cleaned up and painted white.

The ground-level stone mouldings were well-scrubbed and detailed.

And the capiz windows, even on the side elevation, were fully refurbished and all the missing capiz pieces made whole.

In fact, on this visit, I tagged along with a great-granddaughter of the original residents, Domingo Ilagan (Ylagan in Spanish-colonial-era orthography; Ilagan in purer Tagalog) and his wife Maria Martinez. If those names seem familiar, it’s because we previously saw their memorial stone set into the tiled floor of the Taal Basilica.

The observant (or reading-retentive, because I already pointed it out previously) will wonder why they died at relatively young ages, and just a couple of days apart, in 1903. What actually happened was that the Ilagans were murdered in this, their very own house, by a farmer-tenant of theirs, who was also a distant relative. Domingo appears to have died instantly, and Maria succumbed from her injuries shorly after.

Fortunately, their five children were all in boarding schools in Manila at the time of the attack; otherwise, they too might have been harmed. They appear to have successfully overcome their family misfortune, and, despite their being orphaned, managed to continue operating the family’s vast business enterprises. Justice too appears to have been well-served, as the murderer was eventually caught, convicted, and penalized.

Since my last visit to Taal in 2003, the current generation of Ilagans had apparently gotten together to restore their great-grandparents’ home, and the work had progressed sufficiently such that three years later, they had felt confident enough to let non-family members visit. Let’s see how it’s going.

We enter through the postigo (pedestrian cut-out door) in the middle bay of the front elevation, from where the lady in the all-blue outfit looks emerges in this next photo.

It is obvious that the main road not only slopes downwards from the direction of the Basilica at the highest point in town towards the sea, but also that it had been raised substantially since the Ilagan House was built in the late 19^th century.

We find ourselves inside the ground-floor zaguan.

Making a U-turn to the right after entering shows us the back of the full-height doorway at the façade’s extreme right side.

It was probably through this doorway that the family’s agricultural produce was carried into storage on the right side of the zaguan. Today, it only holds physical evidence of the extensive restoration work, now nearly completed.

Making a left turn from the entrance takes the visitor up a short flight of stone steps, leading to an intermediate landing

lit by an electrified antique-style lamp.

Beside the landing and directly behind those rehas-na-buntis (pregnant-looking wrought-iron grills) on the left side of the façade is a small entresuelo (mezzanine room), perhaps originally the home office for the family’s agricultural and trading operations, that might now be put to adaptive reuse as the caretaker’s quarters, or, in a pinch, a guest bedroom.

From within the entresuelo, the caretaker opens the folding window panels behind the rehas na buntis.

We make a sharp U-turn to the right, and ascend this wooden staircase

that is supported by turned-and-ribbed balusters.

We emerge from the staircase

onto an antesala or foyer

lit overhead by this antique-style electrified lamp.

The renovation was just getting completed and the house was as yet totally unfurnished, with the original furniture (or what was left of it) stored elsewhere, except for this lone chair in a corner of the antesala.

Because of the resulting emptiness and void, each room was near indistinguishable from the next, and passing through the doors that connect the numerous spaces felt like going through a maze.

The sala was the obvious first room entered from the antesala. The antesala is seen in the distance in this next photo, taken from the sala.

The doorway connecting the antesala to the sala is topped by a carved-and-pierced transom.

Like the antesala, the sala too was lit simply by an antique-style electrified light fixture.

From the sala, it was evident that the entire house was held up by posts, standing well behind the outer walls.

As a result and like many other Philippine ancestral houses, the outer walls did not have to be load-bearing, and could therefore consist of a continuous array of wrap-around capiz window panels and balustered ventanillas beneath.

The posts themselves were actually tree trunks of the densest tropical hardwoods, probably yakal or molave.

While they were usually concealed by square pillars as seen earlier, sometimes, cabinet doors were built in front of them, to provide that last cubic meter of storage within.

Looking out from the sala windows over the side street, one sees the characterful stone walls of the neighbor to the right of the Ilagan House. What a juicy restoration project, potentially.

Like the main entrance from the antesala to the sala, and with the exception of this one over-door that might have seen its original panel damaged and therefore now replaced,

most of the doorways of the Ilagan House were not only furnished with double-paneled doors, but also topped with carved-and-pierced transoms, as in this passage to the right of the sala.

This is preumably the master bedroom, now awaiting the return of its original furnishings (or the acquisition of suitable replacements).

The restoration appears to have been done quite meticulously and without gratuitous alterations. The original door hinges

and doorknobs

continue to render service into their second century of existence.

At the far end of this master bedroom

is a passageway

that leads back to the antesala at the top of the stairs.

Back in the sala, we make a U-turn to the left, where this small but bright orb bids us welcome towards a double-door

that leads to another bedroom that not only may alternatively be entered directly from the antesala, but also opens up onto a series of several more rooms

whose doorways are also double-door-paneled and pierced-transom-topped

and that includes a bedroom, lit by this familiar style of light fixture.

One of these rooms appears to be the dining room, which is set apart by its multi-armed chandelier. A round table to seat ten might look appropriate in this space.

Beyond the dining room

is another room

which, upon the return of suitable equipment, may function as the kitchen once again.

From this last row of interconnected rooms

one may look out from balconies and passageways on the perimeter

and view not only the other half of the house that fronts the main road, where we were previously

but also the rear elevations of the neighboring houses on the same block – near-exact copies of the Ilagan House.

At the back of the kitchen is a stone platform, where is found a large square hole from which the rainwater-collecting cistern may be accessed for the residents' hydrating needs.

Our tour having been completed, we return to the antesala, descend the staircase

and land in the ground floor zaguan at the foot of the stone steps.

To the right is a doorway that we ignored previously,

through which we can pass to go to the backyard.

We go back out onto the main road, and see that directly across is a vacant lot, where likely an ancestral house too once stood, now sadly gone.

Good thing that the Ilagan House itself has been far more fortunate.

We move on and see if other structures elsewhere in Taal are equally blessed.

(Continued here.)


Originally published on 9 August 2009.  All text and photos copyright ©2009 by Leo D Cloma. The moral right of Leo D Cloma to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

Original comments:

jongbasco wrote on Sep 1, '09 i love Taal. am thinking of going back there really soon. Thanks for sharing these recent. rally65 wrote on Sep 1, '09 jongbasco said i love Taal. am thinking of going back there really soon. Thanks for sharing these recent developments. Taal is really underrated. I really want to go back myself before 2009 ends.