It is a lovely house that looks like origami on the outside. It is white concrete and the front yard makes it look closed off from the public, but that is only an illusion. When you step through the antique wooden door you come close to being in paradise. The floors are crazy-cut stone or Machuka tile, so easy to clean. You just mop them. The house looks like it floats on a natural pond that has lotuses and other plants that bloom in it, and around 40 carp. Carps are smaller than kois but larger than goldfish. I began my pond with only five of them. Two died. Now there are almost 40 and they live with a school of janitor fish that help keep the balance in the pond. They swim in the 250 sq.m. pond with other little fish.
These days I have fewer little fish than when I permanently lived there. Then there were thousands of them. Since I don’t live there anymore it has become forage territory for birds. Kingfishers come in the summer and hunt down the smaller fish. All year round, all kinds of birds come over to attack the cogon roof, take away strands to make their nests. Many of them make their nests within. So the cogon roof is falling apart but I have not changed it. I think I will leave that part of the decision to the new owner. He or she may want to replace the cogon with shingles. Don’t worry, the cogon was set on galvanized roofing. Nobody gets wet inside the house when it rains. The ceilings don’t leak. Ferns and plants have grown on the remaining cogon. I find that so charming and don’t want to remove the plants that grow, crawl along the edges and reach down towards the water of the pond.
The house is located in Maria Makiling Greenheights subdivision, on a plateau between Laguna de Bay and Mount Makiling. From my bedroom you can see Ayala Greenfields, a premium golfing estate about 10 minutes away. There the lots are up for sale at P8,000 to P10,000 per sq.m. Here I have priced my property at the current market value of only P4,500 per sq.m. but my lot is big, 1,400 sq.m. I bought eight lots, back to back. If you have the money, you can probably buy the empty lots next to it. There is room for you to grow to make your garden bigger. Or maybe you will be happy with the size of mine.
There are big wild trees. I don’t know their names. I only know they were growing on the property when I acquired it and we just moved them around to make room for the house. One of them is an isis tree, old and wide. I landscaped and the back garden has two levels. The fence is just barbed wire but now it is overgrown with bougainvilleas in all colors. In the summer the blooms are lovely. That’s one thing about this area. Plants don’t die. We like to believe that Maria Makiling takes care of them herself.
My house has been described as an art gallery. It is Asian, looks somewhat Japanese, but is made out of steel and concrete. Termites are a problem here and so I used as little wood as I could. My lighting fixtures, all of which I am willing to leave behind, are made by Shoko, a theater light designer and they are all dramatically beautiful. They carry the lily pad theme into the house. My bedroom is big, full of windows and it has a loft, which I turned into an office and an exercise area, my refuge, really. When I lived there I would get up every morning and go for a walk around the lovely village, breathing in the fresh air, admiring all the flowers that were blooming along the way. There was a street I called "Fairy Street," where I believed the fairies lived. When I got back home I would drink my juice and coffee and feed the fish their stale bread. Then I would go up to my loft and do yoga. That was part of life before my stroke. It was beautiful and joyful here in this house.
Last February I decided to sell the house. You see, I had had a stroke and that kind of mandated me to move back to the city where I was closer to everything, especially the hospital. I scaled down my life. I got connected with all sorts of agents trying to sell the house but none of their efforts were very successful. Now I know I really have to sell the house myself if I want to get it sold soon. I will tell you myself: It is not for everyone. So here’s the market as I define it. You must be 45 or over, single or a couple with grown-up children who no longer live at home. You must want a creative lifestyle in a quiet neighborhood just an hour away from Makati. If you belong to this group, then you must send me e-mail and I can take you to have a look at my Lily Pad and make me an offer to buy it.
Please, please think about it. I really need to sell my house now.