The Taj Mahal of Negros Occidental, Philippines

Have you ever visited any ancestral house?

Welcome again to another travel story of mine, read and imagine that you are with me on this journey. Allow me also to show you a few pictures that I have taken during our visit.

The ancestral house that I visited first here in the Philippines was the ancestral house that is located here in Talisay, Negros Occidental, Philippines or The Ruins to be specific is the home mansion of the wealthy sugar baron Don Mariano Lacson that was built in 1900s. According to the tour guide, the mansion was constructed as a testament of his love to her Portuguese wife, Maria Braga Lacson, who is pregnant with their eleventh child and passed away during the birth of their eleventh child. The tour guide also stated that it took 440 hectares of sugar plantation to build the structure of this mansion.

Actually, its architecture was portrayed as Italianate as it is inspired from Italian Architecture, and if you believe it or not this mansion's wall was created using the egg whites that were mixed with cement as a finishing. Imagine how wealthy they are, as they really used egg whites to build the mansion. My grandmother tells a story about the mansion. She said that this mansion has a strong foundation because of the egg whites that were mixed to build it. However, this mansion was set on fire during world war two. In accordance with the tour guide, this was only done to prevent that it would turn out to be the military office invading by the Japanese forces. It was burned for three consecutive days, but even though it was set on flame, the mansion stood strong.

The Ruins was called to be the Taj Mahal of Negros, for the reason of the love story that they was built in this famous mansion. It was painful for Don Mariano to lose his wife, that is the reason why he decided to build a mansion to ease the pain that he felt and also to commemorate the love that he and his wife have shared. Additionally, on the wall of the mansion, the initials of their name was engraved, the M and M, that stands for Mariano and Maria.

Our experience in visiting this ancestral house was meaningful and unforgettable, the tour guide tells us about the story of how the mansion was built and flamed, in short they tells the history of the mansion and also about the family of the wealthy sugar baron Don Mariano, we are really amazed by the mansion as it has a strong foundation. The view of the mansion is something that I cannot forget, it looks really beautiful and of course it really shows that it was built by love, in which it simply explains the strong foundation of love that they gave to each other and to their children. It was really nice to hear every detail of the mansion, and the love that they have built together. Even the outside of the mansion has a beautiful view, as you can see in the picture it has a glowing green grass that surrounds the mansion, it also has a fountain in front of the mansion that attracts the visitors to take a picture. The personnels also show the best service, in which they accommodate their guests very well. The Ruins is one of a kind, an ancestral house that has a lot of story, an ancestral house that has a strong foundation not only for the mansion itself, but also the love that was built on that house.

The history of the ancestral houses here in the Philippines have something that really caught the attention of many, a lot of happenings in the past that we cannot really imagine. The love, laughter, and sometimes the melancholy moments of their lives that they have shared together, but after all, still they stood strong just as the memory that they have built, which is their ancestral house that shows how strong the foundation of their love is.