WALA LANG
The house—mansion actually—of his grandmother’s grandfather still stands and Álvaro Bartolomé Ruiz was awestruck. He lives in Madrid, visiting the Philippines for the first time.
Bartolomé’s ancestor Valentín Teus (1832-1909) was from Navarra at the foot of the Pyrenees. At age 15, he decided to try his luck in faraway Manila. Teus was an enterprising young man. In a few years he was able to buy a distillery in Hagonoy, Bulacan that he later merged with Ynchausti y Cia., thereby becoming a partner of tycoons Joaquin Ynchausti, Juan Bautista Yrrisari, and Joaquin Elizalde. They were a trading partnership that dealt in ship supplies and abaca rope for ship rigging. They also owned ships that plied the Manila-Laguna de Bay route.
Teus became super rich and powerful. In 1871 he became alcalde primero of the Ayuntamiento de Manila (City Council) and in the following year was honored as Comendador de la Real Orden de Isabel la Católica.
He married Teresa Ferrater Ponte, daughter of the capitán general but she passed away. At age 62, he married a second time, his wife’s 20-year old niece Dolores Menendez Valdes de Cornellana. They had four kids, Valentín Jr. who died young, Concepción, Valentín III, and Dolores.
The family first lived in Binondo but in the 1890s Don Valentín surprised his wife with a new house (the subject of this article) in the fashionable arrabal of San Miguel. It was built on the ruins of an older building probably felled by the 1880 earthquake.
Located at the corner of General Solano and Tanduay (now J. Nepomuceno) Streets, the massive wrought iron gate opens to a stone courtyard with a fountain. The facade has pointed neo-gothic windows. The protruding central section holds the porte cochere below and part of the sala on the second floor. A carriageway led through the ground floor allowing guests to be driven straight to the grand staircase.
Above the carriageway on the second floor, a wide hall ran through the depth of the house. The tiled veranda at the rear overlooked the Pasig River and Isla de Convalecencia. Old photographs show wall murals and rooms richly furnished with tall mirrors, Chinese porcelain, carpets, and marble statuary. The bedrooms had four poster beds and large mirrored aparadors. The dining room had large high sideboards. Marble topped tables, elaborate rattan furniture, and a large birdcage were in the veranda. The ground floor must have been bodegas, utility rooms, and servants’ quarters (there were 17 of them). There wasn’t (and isn’t) much natural light and Doña Dolores complained, “chocaban los ojos con las paredes” (literally, eyes collided with walls).
The family traveled every five years, spending a year in Spain. Valentin Jr. sadly passed away on one trip and was interred at sea. Taking no chances, they brought a cow aboard the ship on one voyage so the children could have fresh milk.
Concepción and Dolores went to Assumption Convent until high school and to Spain for their college education. Predictably, they married and remained in Spain. Their husbands were brothers, sons of Joaquin Vara de Rey who was a high military officer in the Philippines and later Governor of the Marianas Islands.
Valentín III remained in Manila and went into business but was apparently not too successful. He featured in a high-profile divorce that was the talk of the town. He remarried and in old age moved to the US.
In due course, Teus assets here were liquidated and reinvested in Spain. Much of their furniture was shipped to Spain and remain in a family home in San Sebastian. Daughter Concepcion inherited the Manila house. She rarely visited and with an old man as caretaker, the once proud mansion deteriorated—the kitchen roof fell in and the attic became home to a bat colony. In the late 1970s, Concepcion sold the place to then first lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos who made it into a guest house.
Mrs. Marcos restored and remodeled the house with the help of interior designer Ronnie Laing and antique dealer Viring de Asis. It seems that the former dining room was made into two bedrooms and the partitions of another bedroom taken down to create a large living-dining area. Bathrooms and closets were inserted, entrances cleverly camouflaged with aparador fronts. The original downstairs carriageway became an entrance hall. The rest were made into 12 bedrooms which, with five upstairs, gave the old home a total of 17 bedrooms.
I was invited to the house in happier times and remember a stupendous array of antique European silver (mainly English Georgian, including Paul Storr and Paul de Lamerie), described as gifts on the Marcos 25th wedding anniversary, a row of Grandma Moses paintings, large Qing Dynasty vases, and cabinets with porcelain and ivory bibelots. They’re not there now but, with hope, are somewhere retrievable.
Teus relatives were allowed to visit the home during the PNoy administration but photographs were forbidden. This time, photos were allowed and the 100-year-old Doña Concha Vara de Rey Teus, granddaughter of the builder Don Valentín Teus, was delighted to finally revisit even virtually the old manse and the corridor where she merrily tricycled as a little girl.
Notes: (a) The Teus distillery has grown a thousandfold and survives as Tanduay Distillers, Inc., a Lucio Tan company; and (b) The house adjoining the Teus’ was sold to Mrs. Marcos by Michael Goldenberg, Philippine manufacturer of “Helene Curtis Shampoo Plus Egg.” National Artist Leandro Locsin restored and converted the place into a guest house where guests like Van Cliburn, Cristina Ford and Doris Duke stayed.
Comments are cordially invited, addressed to [email protected]