|
By: Paulo Clemente
Hacienda Isabella is technically located off
Tagaytay - in Indang, Cavite. It is actually nearer the so-called Tagaytay
Highway, thus the reference as Hacienda Isabella Tagaytay.
Couples who want their wedding held in Tagaytay could only have three things
in mind – cool and cozy weather, fun and adventure.
There are so many venues available in Tagaytay but Hacienda Isabella is
uniquely its own kind. It was like being bounced back to the old hacienda
living in the south and the only thing lacking are the acres of sugarcane
plantation. The creator of this visually-enchanting place is no other than
Kuh Ledesma, our country’s Pop Diva.
A native of Bacolod where the great haciendas of the past still exist to
this day, Kuh created her own hacienda in the cool city of Tagaytay. I can’t
describe the place even as a mixture of oriental and western. Maybe
Spanish-Mediterranean but nahhh…. there’s something more to it than mere
descriptions. I will define Hacienda Isabella as truly Filipino with nary a
trace of today’s faux style of living. The way it was designed was not taken
from any architectural digest and must have just come from the artist’s
mind. I have been to her first house in Mandaluyong and it was marvelously
designed by her too. The best way to describe Hacienda is to describe Kuh -
with unexplainable mystique and sheer elegance no matter the actual
simplicity of itself.
Here’s a virtual tour
of my Hacienda Isabella experience:
From the highway, coming from the “rotunda”, you turn right to this Maglabe
Road, before you even reach the “radar”. You simply follow the signs leading
to the place. This scenario reminded me of my youth when I would count
coconut trees and remember the houses we pass through, even attempt to count
them all, to reach our farm and pasture land in the South.
For first timers, this would seem like eternity. For adventurers, this is a
magical and an exciting pursuit. No matter the seeming “distance”, the roads
are so well-paved and it was enriching to the spirit passing through the
bucolic scenery at its finest. It actually takes only a good fifteen minutes
non-stop to reach the place from the highway.
The facade of Hacienda from the road was nothing grand, even inconspicuous.
Upon entry, you pass through
this short narrow pavement lined with Langka
trees and then you are welcomed by planks of old hardwood in wonderful
disarray, casually rested on the wall. In front of it is the unlacquered
antique door and on its left side are
English-inspired box gardens that lead to the informal ‘tenants” entry into
the hacienda. Since we are “Visitantes Especial”. Let’s enter using the main
door.
When you enter, there’s a short “pasillo” (
Spanish for “foyer” or “entrance hall” ) where there’s a long wooden lounge
sofa (see midpix below). In the olden Spanish era, this is where ordinary
folks are entertained by the “landlords”. So let’s just enter in since we
are special guests, remember?
The picture below (left) is what you will see when you look to your left
from the “pasillo” – a huge cushioned sofa where you would immediately want
to sit on. You would also wish to rest your feet on the wooden table
(actually a wooden pew) in front of it. Go ahead and just do so.
The picture on the right is what welcomes you on the right side from the
foyer. It is actually the formal dining area with a fireplace. There is also
a door there that leads to the “cucina”. Unlike the kitchen of the good old
days though, Hacienda Isabella’s “cucina” has the amenities of a first-class
restaurant.
You must be thinking that those are glass panels surrounding the main house.
Those are actually nets of the finest kind. That’s what you call maximizing
the air to breeze in and out such that there’s no need for any fans.
Now when you look up, you are surprised with
the refreshing view of the balcony and that strange but gorgeous-looking
chandelier (I wonder where that came from!). Even the railing has a carabao
plow on it and I find it quite original.
The main house actually has two rooms at the
ground level. One room is where Kuh’s assistant stays when there are events.
The other one is a huge room with something like six beds and that’s where I
and my Angel’s Wink Staff slept the day before and after the wedding event.
On the second floor are four more rooms where the couple and their family
stayed. It also has “sala” and a balcony up there. The rooms are uniquely
designed by Kuh herself and they have indescribable Kuh “touch” on them. Too
bad I have no photos but will shoot some when I visit again.
From the inside of the main villa, let’s go outside:
Above photo (extreme left) shows how the
veranda of the main villa looks like. This is where the action takes place
for wedding receptions. It has cemented areas and greens so huge it can
accommodate even a thousand guests. The smaller villa on the left side of
the main villa (with the redbrick roof, above, second from left ) is almost
done when we went there, plus another one much nearer the main house. It
must be finished already by now. These were constructed to accommodate more
guests to sleep in overnight.
Now let’s look to the right from the veranda facing the greens and a new
view sets in altogether (see pics below). If you were to ask me, I would
like smaller wedding receptions held here, or perhaps a Christian wedding
ceremony can be celebrated there. It has a covered area that has a roofing
which gives an inkling of Thai inspiration, although not quite. There’s a
billiard table there which you can use hours on end. Amidst it is a small
pond that is refreshing to look at. In front of it is a wall made of bricks
and it woke up the Mexican blood in me.
At the back of the Thai-inspired covered area are two small villas, so cute
I want to have something like that for myself in the near future. I think
Kuh stays there when she visits prior to an event to personally oversee
things. We enjoyed watching the Diva herself “heading” the entire hacienda
staff. She didn’t want any creases on the table covers and had them ironed
again. To think I didn’t notice it until she mentioned it so.Wow.
Farther on is another covered area with white
lounge seats to while the hours away beside two life-size paintings of
genteel man and woman of the Spanish era. I guess what makes Hacienda
Isabella so different from all the places I have been to could be the
adornments you see all over the place (pictures below). The wooden sofas,
the lamps, the fish figurine made of stone, everything! Each and every
single thing I see seemed to have a very beautiful story to tell… I felt
whimsical, magical. I couldn’t wait for them to share their stories to me.
To end, my Hacienda Isabella experience is
something which enriched me in a spiritual way. It is inexplicable but
that’s exactly how I felt. It had a soothing effect on me, kind of giving me
a calming, serene feeling deep inside, certainly far better than having a
spa, heheheheehe. All I had to do is sit on one corner with my coffee and
just let the good energy go deep inside me. I went home with it and I
certainly felt revitalized and ready once again for the bustling life in the
metropolis.
Photo credits: Cons & Jen (http://www.pbase.com/cons_jen/hacienda_isabella)
for Hacienda photos; www.kuhledesma.net
for photos of the Diva
|
