A Thing of Beauty

Talisay City, Negros Occidental, the Philippines

December 29, 2009

A thing of beauty is a joy forever / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness; but still will keep / A bower quiet for us, and a sleep…

These verses by John Keats came to mind when I beheld what is simply called The Ruins.

The Ruins in Talisay, Negros Occidental

Talisay City is the northern neighbor of Bacolod, my hometown. When I was a kid, Talisay was just a town you passed through en route to more happenin’ places, such as Silay and Victorias. It certainly wasn’t a place to wax poetic in.

That changed in January 2008 when The Ruins was unveiled to the public. I got wind of it through a Facebook photo album of a relative in Negros. I promised myself a go-see the first chance I get.

The Ruins: A Thing of Beauty

Vertigo View from the Second Floor of The Ruins

For decades it lay in a state of ruins – its rubble reportedly visited by teenagers on ghost-hunting outings. Now, it is too polished to be ghostly but it’s still off the beaten track. Only one rather discreet sign can be found on a street corner. It points to a dirt road that cuts through a sugarcane plantation. The entire route just begs to be missed, unless your ride knows exactly where it is.

The Ruins is the remains of an Italianate mansion built in the early 1900s by a sugar baron, Mariano Ledesma Lacson. His portrait hangs there now, along with Maria Braga’s, his Portuguese wife from Macau. I thought they lived there together, but I learned she had died before its construction. The mansion was built in her memory – a sort of lived-in Taj Mahal to his wife.

Don Mariano Lacson

Maria Braga

Maritime influences can be found in the design. As a nod to Lady Braga’s father who was a ship captain, a belvedere was put on the second floor that overlooks the coast. I gingerly climbed up the staircase for the view, but there were no railings. It can be perilously vertigo-inducing. Not recommended for wobbly knees. Balustrades that line the outer walls are also said to be typical architectural embellishments of ship captains’ houses at that time.

In its halcyon days, the mansion was the largest residential structure in Negros. Now only its concrete skeleton remains, but imagination can fill up its hollow interior with elegant furniture and luxurious decors. One thing for certain – Negrense hacienderos knew how to live the good life and commanded anything top-of-the-line. One article claims that the construction of the mansion was done 24/7  - a continuous pouring of concrete ensures an airtight and sturdy structure.

The (Arch)way We Were

Cruciform Creeper

Confirming Keat’s words, a 3-day conflagration could not annihilate this beauty; it just transformed the mansion into its hollow magnificence now. It was burned to a crisp by guerilla fighters (USAFFE – United States Armed Forces in the Far East) at the start of WW2 to render it useless for Japanese forces. The roof caved in and its contents went up in smoke but the concrete structures stubbornly remained standing. And the tiles were somehow salvaged; they are still the original ones you see on the flooring.

Hollow Hall

Light and Shade: The Ruins

Through the Fire

Its fiery history reminded me of a story about my great-grandfather. His house in the countryside was similarly torched around the same time, along with its cherished contents, primarily my grandfather’s mementos and photos of his stay in the US. My mother said he could only crouch in agony as he watched the house and family history reduced to cinder.

Its modern history started when a descendant of Don Lacson married into the Javellana clan. This branch of the family now owns the property, and they had the light-bulb of an idea to turn The Ruins into a tourist attraction. The minimal entrance fee of P25 (only about 50 cents!) allows you to fully explore this relic of Negrense history at your own pace. But it’s primarily a photography buff’s dream. The tall arches and rows of columns would photograph well at sundown, when shadows are long and the light soft. I was there mid-afternoon, and even then, the streaming beams of sunlight through the archways were quite dramatic. My mom who would usually be indifferent to camwhoring could not resist asking me to take her photos, conceptualizing her own photos.

Mom at The Ruins

Mom Strikes a Pose in The Ruins

My Nephew, Dylan James

Dylan at the Front Lawn of The Ruins

The grounds around The Ruins are just as picture-perfect. A flower garden on one side of the mansion was restored. The original garden was tended by a Japanese gardener; but he, understandably, disappeared when the Japanese invaded the island. That original garden must have had Zen sensibilities. The air of tranquility is still retained in the garden, but now with more European influences: a cobblestone oasis of flowers and fountain as an accent on a wide lawn of even-trimmed grass, a wishing well, and shade structures. Rows of yellow bells dancing in the wind made us forget the heat.

A multi-tiered fountain provides a dynamic contrast to the stone-cold imposing ruins, and also to an old towering smokestack (simboryo) behind it. The sound of cascading water complements this relaxing ambiance. These restorations make for an enchanting venue for weddings, parties, and such.

The Fountain at The Ruins

Fountain and "Simboryo"

Yellow Bells

What was once torched and abandoned is now a tourist attraction. Beauty prevails over the ravages of war and time. Seeing The Ruins brought to mind other architectural relics and ancient edifices. They are testaments that beauty outlives the physical structure that possesses it, that their stories and histories live on in their hollow shells. The mansion that Don Lacson built grows in beauty as The Ruins.

This photo was taken by my nephew, Dylan.