The living room is furnished with local furniture built in Silang, Cavite and Cebu City (Photo by JC VALENCIA)

MANILA, Philippines -- It’s somewhat difficult to spot the residence of Lilia and Eric Abad Santos at Peninsula de Punta Fuego in Nasugbu, Batangas. It’s actually just beyond the neighborhood entrance but it seems to be carefully hidden from view. A lot of the houses here are beautifully designed; a few of them actually scream for attention.

In contrast, the Abad Santos house is subtle. Its façade is covered with foliage, particularly the pink bougainvilleas.  It’s as if the owners wanted to keep the house a secret, and only those in the know can behold its beauty and experience its charm when they enter it.

Like most of the houses in the area, its architecture is distinctly Mediterranean, the mandatory style in Punta Fuego. The interiors, however, is a showcase of Filipino furniture and décor.  Wooden furniture, accessories made of bamboo, and other Filipiniana items dominate every room. The items are locally made, Lilia insists.  They purposely eschewed anything made abroad.  Most of the furniture was built in Silang, Cavite and Cebu City.

“We wanted a truly Filipino house,” she says. “Thus, while the architecture is Mediterranean, the interiors are traditional Filipino.  We tried to maintain this look in every room, including the kitchen.  I even had a bamboo cabinet custom-made and it had to be big enough to fit in the refrigerator. With the refrigerator hidden from view, the kitchen retains an authentic Filipino look.”

Also enhancing the Filipiniana motif are the wooden jars ensconced on the kitchen counter. Each jar serves as a container for sugar and other spices.

“This is the cheapest house ever built in Punta Fuego,” her husband Eric claims. Yet the house looks very elegant and priceless. Being a vacation house, it was designed by Architect Danny Ibay to be a place where one can relax and enjoy the scenic and tranquil surroundings.  The house may look expensive but there is nothing formal about it. After all, the owners wanted a rustic house. High ceilings and large glass picture windows offer a view of the expansive garden and the sea beyond the low concrete fence.

Cross ventilation is a must for every house the Abad Santoses built. It’s why they enjoy the cool sea breeze inside the place constantly.  Almost all the rooms in the house have large picture windows, including the bathrooms. “Those who want privacy can always pull down the blinds,” quips Eric Abad Santos.  “But the neighborhood is always usually empty during the week. There is nobody to hide from when you’re using the bathroom.”

The residence actually consists of two separate houses. They seem to be connected but they aren’t. The areas occupied by the two houses are bordered by a walkway covered by a trellis, which gives an illusion of the two houses being just one. They’re both two-storey affairs. The first house faces the street and is more of a guest cottage. In place of a living room is a foyer where the staircase leading to the three guestrooms is located. The bedrooms were designed to look identical; each of them has the same décor, furniture, and paintings done by one artist. “We have three sons and we reserved one guestroom for each of them and their families,” explains Lilia. “We decided to put them in a separate house so we can all have our privacy.”

“And we get to save ourselves from the noise they make,” adds Eric. “Their children can play all they like without disturbing us. The boys can argue with their wives without us knowing about it!”

Each bedroom has a unique wooden dressing table that appears to look like an antique.  They were created by a Spanish furniture designer based in Cebu. “We saw it in a furniture exhibit and we wanted to buy it on the spot,” recalls Lilia. “But he wouldn’t sell it to us because it was meant to be exported only. We had to beg him to accommodate us and he eventually did. We had four tables custom-made for the house. I also asked Danny, our architect, to visit the factory in Cebu to have a look at their other products and buy whatever item he might deem perfect for the house. He had a grand time shopping there. Most of the items you see here came from that factory.”

The main house faces the beach, which was christened the Crescent Beach by Landco Pacific, which developed Punta Fuego. This is where the main living room, dining area, master bedroom is located. This house is more opulently decorated yet it doesn’t ruin the informal atmosphere of the place. On the coffee table are some of the music boxes Lilia has collected. Each of them strictly follows the Filipiniana theme. Lilia and Danny Ibay relished working together as they searched and discovered various accessories for the house. “I’m a frustrated designer,” says Lilia while laughing. “I love to decorate.”

They obviously worked well together as both architect and client successfully managed to blend the Mediterranean style with the Filipiniana look. Fusing the vintage red Coca-Cola icebox and jukebox machine with the interiors of the living room was also done seamlessly. Lilia and her architect have built three homes already; the first was the Abad Santos vacation house in Tagaytay, their distinctive farm house at Leisure Farms in Lemery in Batangas, and finally this house in Punta Fuego.

Friends and relatives had wondered why they needed three vacation houses, all of which are located within an hour from each other. “The three houses are our gifts to our three sons,” Lilia explains. “We held a raffle draw; and each son picked a piece of paper that indicated the house they would inherit.”

Anyway, now that they’re retired, the couple has all the time to enjoy the three houses. Eric Abad Santos had served as director for personnel, distribution, and personnel departments of Proctor & Gamble, and later served as a consultant for the same company. Lilia was a real estate broker. “I went into real estate to keep myself busy. The children now had their own families so I had all the time in the world.”

Lilia sold lots located in many of Landco Pacific’s real estate projects. These included Leisure Farms and Punta Fuego, among others. “I believed in the products I was selling, I easily convinced my friends to buy and I told my husband to buy, buy, and buy! That’s another reason why we have three vacation homes.”

By the time they acquired a lot in Peninsula de Punta Fuego, most of the choice properties were already spoken for. So they settled on the lot facing Crescent Beach, which turned out to be one of the finest spots in the neighborhood. It’s right on the beach, and there are hardly any other houses on the shore. They have the beach all to themselves.  “This was actually the spot where the Roxas ancestral house stood,” says Eric Abad Santos. “That’s why we have a lot of old trees on the property.”

A Talisay tree, said to be over a century old, stands gracefully in the garden. To make this garden even bigger, the couple annexed the next lot. “It belongs to a friend who said she had no intention of building. I sold that lot to her and she gave us her full blessing to use it,” says Lilia.

Only a low concrete wall separates the Abad Santos property from the beach, which is furnished with a garden set and beautiful macramé hammocks. Near the gate to the beach is a shower area where the children can wash the sand off their bodies before entering the house. The water pours out from a long bamboo hanging across the open area. Others can shower in privacy in a small and quaint hut adjacent to the bamboo shower.  It's a very Filipino hut, of course.