If the Philippine presidents, from Emilio Aguinaldo to Ferdinand E. Marcos, all lived in one house, what would that house look like? Maybe like the Arlegui Guest House at San Rafael Street in Manila, within the Malacañan Palace complex in the San Miguel district.
The European-style mansion is a two-story number built in the early 1900s. Its exteriors, featuring a stately frontage, are classic European, with grand columns and wrought ironwork, along with decorative moldings on the high ceiling, the opulent chandeliers, and the hardwood floors alternating with cement and ceramic tiles, are grounded with tropical touches like large windows, expansive verandas, and a swimming pool.
The official residence of former Presidents Cory Aquino (1986-1992) and Fidel V. Ramos (1992-1998), it once belonged to Sabina Sioco de Escaler, before it was sold at a public auction in 1932 to Roberto Laperal and his wife Victorino Guison. Since then it’s been layered with so much history, including housing the American consulate at the
end of World War II, the just established Department of Foreign Affairs around 1946, the national library in the mid-’50s, and the office in 1961 of what would later be called Presidential Management Staff.
Now, it’s the Laperal Mansion and still, interchangeably, called the Arlegui Guest House, a revived architectural marvel featuring 14 rooms and five state rooms, or communal areas, including a stately dining room and two multipurpose halls, as well as a spa and sauna designed by Conrad Onglao and C.T. Onglao Architects. It has been reimagined to host visiting heads of state and other high-level dignitary, such as the Pope, of course, should he decide to revisit as a guest of the Philippine government. The initiative, more than a cultural revival project, is also practical. The Laperal House, in the long run, will be a much cheaper alternative to five-star hotels, where visiting heads of state used to be housed, and a better opportunity to showcase Philippine history, culture, artisanship, and hospitality.
It took a village of designers to make the Laperal Mansion worthy of its history and also of the Philippine presidents and historical figures after whom each room in the house has been named. The design team composed of the country’s most revered names in interior design was headed by architect Jonathan G. Matti under his eponymous design firm. He took charge of the overall theme, the design of the communal areas, such as the main dining room, which he named the MacArthur Room after Douglas Macarthur, the living rooms, one of which he named the Magellan Room after Ferdinand Magellan (downstairs) and the other the Rizal Room after José Rizal (upstairs), and the sunrooms (Emilio Aguinaldo and José P. Laurel), and the bedrooms named after
Ferdinand E. Marcos, which is the equivalent of a presidential suite, and Joseph Ejercito Estrada.
As the overall designer, he kept a color scheme reflective of the time the Laperal Mansion was built, when colors in interior design were turning more neutral, more pastel, soft greens, pale shades of pink, periwinkle, creams, caramel… “Doing this project was such a fulfilling experience because it brought the camaraderie among the design community,” he says. “The Filipino bayanihan spirit was so evident. So many friends and suppliers and creative people all wanted to be part of this project that donated things they thought might be of use or would add value to the Laperal Mansion.”
Some of these generous additions are the banana fiber wallpaper used in the Ferdinand E. Marcos suite, which was donated by Maricris Brias of Tadeco and the three Bien Benitez artworks in the foyer and also the Ferdinand E. Marcos suite. Karen Santos of Kassa brought in a 19th-century empire table for the Magellan Room, Kanya by Bea Roxas supplied the fabrics made from sugarcane fiber on the dining chairs in the Laurel Room, and Lizzie Zobel provided, through the Ayala Foundation, the coffee table books displayed in the Magellan Room.
For the 14 bedrooms, 14 designers, give or take since some of them worked as duos or as entire teams, were tasked to reimagine the spaces to be what the Social Secretary’s Office calls “a love letter” to past presidents, a tribute to each of them and also a historical memento of their time either in their official lives as heads of state or in their personal lives as Filipinos.
So what does each of the room look like? Let me take you through seven of my favorite bedrooms.
The suite of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., designed by Jonathan Matti, is an ode to the former President’s intellectual brilliance, as well as his character as a voracious seeker of knowledge. My favorite space in the one-bedroom suite is the library.
His humble roots in Lubao, Pampanga is the inspiration behind the Diosdado Macapagal Room, designed by Lizzie Zobel de Ayala, Junie Rodriguez, and Mia Borromeo under The Collective. Along with Macapagal’s rural causes, this inspiration is expressed through the handmade wallpaper by Tadeco, the Pinilian Inabel curtain trim, the custom rattan lattice work headboard with pineapple, rice, and sugarcane design, and the Ireneo Miranda country scene artworks in watercolor.
The suite of President Carlos P. Garcia, designed by Antonio Mendoza under La Maison d’Antoine, is headlined by an accent wallpaper featuring antiquarian books in ode to Garcia’s monicker as the Prince of Visayan Poets, as well as a chess board harking back to how The New York Times described him in his obituary on June 15, 1971 as “an excellent chess player, a reader of philosophy and history, and a poet.”
The President Rodrigo Roa Duterte bedroom by Chat Fores under her eponymous design studio is reflective of Duterte’s no-frills, function-first approach to life. “Our team chose neutral colors with splashes of deep browns and burgundy to highlight his masculine taste. We added touches of animal print in exotic tones just to give a little earthiness,” explains Chat, pointing out other masculine touches, such as the leather from Prizmic and brill as trims with brass nail heads accentuating the wallpaper, the leather and horn-rimmed chairs, the zebra skin accent table, and the fully upholstered studded bed.
The President Corazon C. Aquino bedroom, designed by Al Modesto Valenciano under Balay ni Atong Arts, Crafts, and Antiques, so subtly highlights the yellow ribbon, the powerful symbol of the former president’s movement, which was reinterpreted as drawer handles. Awash in yellow, the room is a space of peace and quiet, replete with a detail of her painting, a hobby she took up after her presidency, used on the wallpaper prints and the handprinting stamped on the handwoven curtains.
The piece-de-resistance of the interior design concept for the Noynoy Aquino III bedroom designed by Ivy Almario and Cynthia Almario under Atelier Almario is eight pieces of bespoke artwork marrying the eight notable achievements of the Aquino Administration with President Noy’s love for target shooting. “Running the length of the room in parallel with the headboard panel, these impactful artworks inform the room’s users and viewers about President Noy’s two loves—public service and hitting his targets,” said the designers of the room predominantly blue in honor of the late president’s alma matter with white side drapes, warm oak, and bespoke beddings evocative of the patterns on a barong Tagalog.
The suite of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, designed by Tessa Alindogan, Anton Barretto, and ArthurTselishchev under A Design, pays homage to the past president as a staunch environmentalist and diver. The dominant blue in the room represents the oceans that surround the Philippines as an archipelagic nation while the accent wallpaper features the country’s rich flora and fauna. Only the best Kapampangan craftsmen were tapped for the furniture to honor the past president’s roots in Lubao, Pampanga.
The first lady Liza Marcos’ directive to Jonathan on the Laperal Mansion was to “restore, renovate, keep the character, but keep it fresh and light.” Walking through the mansion while it was in a state of disrepair, she said to him, “You know we have this asset and it’s just sitting here. Why don’t we turn it into something useful, something we can be proud of?”
And so now, we have it here—the Laperal Mansion, a guesthouse as worthy of its intended visitors as it is worthy of its host, us Filipinos, and all the riches of this country and its people in terms of history, culture, craftsmanship, and hospitality.