This young couple make sure there is room to ruminate in their own private corner of the world, where fresh air, sunlight, and panoramic views are part of the everyday scene.

Walking through the front door and down the hall, one cannot help but admire this home. What comes ­­after its smaller entrance is a space that grows wider and deeper in the back. Well-thoughtout walls in the roomy corridor lead the eye to a stunning view, and the experience is similar to driving down a narrow road and rounding the corner to find something unexpected.

The living room features a five-panel painting by the artist Maximino Balatbat

There’s nothing but rolling grounds and fresh air for the next hundred metres; the house turns out to be built on the upper edge of a Southern golf course. “The location came to us,” says the owner. “We were lucky enough that it was available.” On weekdays, however, it is already dark when the family gets home and rarely able to have a daytime view of their extended backyard. Blue skies and sprawling landscapes are reserved for Saturday mornings, which can disappear in entire blocks. “I’m always looking out, taking my coffee, or reading the newspaper.”

Dining chairs by Mehitabel in Cebu, a dining table made of ipil and kamagong, and a pendant light from San Francisco adorn the dining room

His young family, he continues, prefers to take meals in the dining room, which is always open and surrounded by tropical greenery. It seems to detach itself from the structure, whose downstairs rooms spread out into the garden. “We wanted to get a feel for the openness,” says the owner, who together with his wife approached the architect Conrad Onglao with ideas on how to make use of the space, the view, and the peculiar position of the property. The owner describes the collaboration as pleasant and effortless. “I never thought about whether the smooth relationship was due to us having the same architectural outlook,” he says, “but we understood each other very well.” Says Onglao, “In the beginning it was actually very challenging in the sense that we didn’t have a run-of-the-mill site—it was narrow in front and wide in the back.” He continues, “But they were very specific with the style they wanted and it made it easier for me to translate what they had in mind.”

The result is a casual but focused home that is able to achieve a high ceiling and volume towards the back, a feature made possible by the unusual downward slope. More important, it lets the light in wherever possible, through large glass windows framed in narra and ipil, the signature woodwork of the home. The golf course can be seen from both the dining and living rooms. “This differs from our previous home,” the owner says. “I guess you could say that house was more on the dark side, so this time around we made sure to have space, light, and open windows.” And, there had to be enough room for their three young boys to run around.

The garden and natural landscape are separated only by the lap pool, which is framed in black granite. Here, the family can lounge in outdoor furniture from Cebu

 

Read the full story in Philippine Tatler Homes (Volume 7), available now on newsstands and bookstores. Download the digital version from Zinio and Magzter. | Photography by Albert Labrador