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A Palace of Memories Frozen in Time: Camille and Angelique Lhuillier's Palacio de Memoria
A look inside the grand, seven-story pre-war mansion then and now.
by
Marco Sumayao
Feb 6, 2019
Feb 6, 2019
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At the center of the Palacio de Memoria—a grand, seven-story pre-war mansion currently being restored and renovated by sisters Camille Lhuillier and Angelique Lhuillier—hangs a chandelier of pristine Murano glass. Sunlight pours in from the main ballroom’s windows, dancing in the explosion of crystalline roses that adorn the fixture’s bodice. As the very first sight one sees upon entering the Palacio, it immediately informs the viewer that this is a place of beauty, of timelessness.
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PHOTO: ANDREW CHESTER ONG
It is, however, the ceiling from which the chandelier hangs that shares a deeper story. Until recently, it was hidden underneath sheets of plywood worn down from years of abandonment. The previous homeowners—the Villaromans—had long emigrated to the United States, leaving behind the home their family had spent their lives in for more than five decades. They had acquired the mansion shortly after World War II devastated the surrounding area; it was a home their patriarch, surgeon Francisco Villaroman, Sr., found ideal for his growing family.
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PHOTO: ANDREW CHESTER ONG
Over the years, Villaroman would add several floors to the mansion’s colonial-era bones to accommodate his children and their families. The original architecture gave way to more modern silhouettes up top. A kitchen was built on every floor, and an elevator was installed to help take the load off Villaroman’s aging bones.
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As time passed, and the family moved on, the house stood unoccupied for the better part of 20 years. Neighboring homes were torn down so that homeowners could sell the land to eager investors. Casinos and condominiums were built in the surrounding area, along Dewey Boulevard and facing Manila Bay. Buried under decades of development, the extravagant home then known as the Villaroman Mansion was forgotten.
“This is the only heritage house on this strip,” Angelique shares. “It's part of our history.”
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After the Lhuillier family acquired the property 15 years ago, restoration began in 2015. By then, the mansion had suffered decades of neglect; its former glory covered by a thick veil of dust and grime. Initial cleaning had uncovered the home’s first secret: an art deco floor depicting a
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“When my father acquired the property, they actually didn't know the extent of how the floor looked,” Camille says. “The house was empty for a very long time, and very dirty.”
The Lhuilliers opted to keep the floor as is, given the rarity of such a feature in modern architecture. There are visible cracks on the surface, and stains mar the colors in a handful of areas, but the sisters were adamant about staying as faithful to the original design as possible, seeing the mansion as a home frozen in time.
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They began stripping away at additions made by the Villaroman family, unearthing more and more of the original architecture. While some renovations couldn’t be removed—such as a quartet of pink marble pillars installed to support the additional floors—newer walls were brought down to open up spaces. Underground tunnels leading to the bay were discovered hidden behind boards, likely placed there to prevent floodwaters from entering the basement areas.
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PHOTO: ANDREW CHESTER ONG
In the main ballroom, renovators realized that the drop-ceiling, constructed of plywood boards, concealed the intricate, swirling geometry designed by the home’s currently unidentified original architect. Concentric arcs of plaster, arranged in shell-shapes, create a texture that contrasts with four pink rings in each quadrant. At the center of each circle, delicate floral reliefs bloom over the art deco flooring.
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PHOTO: ANDREW CHESTER ONG
“As we did the renovation of the ground floor, we noticed that this ceiling that you see now apparently there was like wood that was attached to that,” Angelique shares. “So as the contractor brought it down, then we realized that this one was the original ceiling.”
The mansion began to make more sense, prompting the Lhuilliers to take a more preservative approach to renovations.
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“We've been very tasteful about making it as simple as possible, as they say,” Camille elaborates. “Instead of adding things, we even removed things to make it more simple, to look how it used to be. We've had a lot of help from our creative director, Miguel
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PHOTO: ANDREW CHESTER ONG
She continues: “It's very interesting to notice the house’s correlations to our history as a Filipino people. You can try to see where history has gone. The first two structures are very clearly pre-war, colonial. There was probably a Spanish traveler or
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The restorations have turned the mansion into a living witness of Manila’s past. Every mark on it, every inch of wood and plaster and concrete and marble, tells the cross-generational story of Philippine history, viewed first from the lens of architecture, and then from the life of the family that lived here. In uncovering and preserving as much of its past, Palacio de Memoria taps into a sense of nostalgia for days gone by.
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“We want to give the house as much credit as it deserves,” Camille explains. “When we acquired it, it was so sad-feeling, like ghosts of the past remained. The people who lived inside, and these beautiful things inside, hearken to
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The restorations, the
“As this year goes, we'll be unveiling more and more to the public about our plans, but essentially we want this to be a center for the arts, so we're planning to have a restaurant, probably a museum, and more things like that,” Camille says.
Angelique adds: “Our first event here, open to the public, is our auction on March 9th. The third floor will be done by then, and we’ll be using it as part of the auction.”
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Come March, the public will be reacquainted with a piece of Manila’s past. They’ll drive through its gates, flanked by walls over a dozen feet tall, to see an estate that survived the ravages of the greatest wars this country has seen. They’ll walk across the threshold, and enter a home that bears the footprint of a Philippines still under Spanish rule, its architecture built according to the tastes of its European first owner. They’ll see the marks left behind by a family that had seen several lives come and go, in the pillars and flourishes and floors added to the home’s original frame. They’ll be able to touch the cracks and stains endured by a house forgotten by time.
And, looking up, in the main ballroom, they’ll see a chandelier shining bright as the future, complementing the work of an architect more than a century its senior, with roses as crystallized as the histories preserved within the mansion’s walls.
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PHOTO: ANDREW CHESTER ONG
Interior photographs by Andrew Chester Ong
Portraits by Joseph Pascual
Produced by Nicole Limos Morales
Styled by Paolo Chua, assisted by April Lozada
Makeup by Patrick Alcober for Make Up For Ever
Hair by George Aliben using Aveda
Additional art direction by Sandy Aranas
Shot on location at Palacio de Memoria
