Old Houses are not Forever

The concept of the ancestral home is a very recurring theme in Engish literature - particularly that which is set in the Victorian era - evoking images of ivy covered walls, oak paneled drawing rooms, chandelier-lit dining halls, heavy furniture, stale air, and generations after generations of families all living and dying under the same roof. Frequently the old home is an essential element to the plot itself and provides a certain air of mystery and suspense, without which the story would not hold together so well. Think of Baskerville Hall from The Hound of the Baskervilles, Darlington Hall from The Remains of the Day, and Dunoran House from Sir Dominic's Bargain. A modern condominium filled with contemporary furniture somehow does not quite provide the same atmospheric effect.

Unfortunately, the idea of the eternal ancestral home seems to be a dying one nowadays. It is simply not practical, when the owners of an old house pass on, to keep the house going year after year. It would be a simpler matter if each couple that owned a house were to have one child, who would then marry later on and also produce one child, and so on, so that the ownership of the house would pass directly to a clearly designated successor. Or perhaps as in Baskerville Hall, if there was no direct heir, the closest surviving (and unfortunately cursed) relative would assume ownership. In the real world however, many couples have more than one child, who then move out after marrying and having families of their own. Maintaining an empty old house, particularly in the tropics, where heat, humidity, termites, and the yearly monsoon all combine to cause all sorts of upkeep problems to continually crop up, would probably be a very expensive and losing undertaking in the long run.

Zexiv has always been fascinated with his paternal grandparents' house in New Manila in the home country. His grandparents acquired the house shortly after World War II, after their old house in Sta. Mesa had been bombed during the liberation of Manila. According to stories heard from one relative, the house had at one point been owned by a lady friend of an American army general or senior officer. Zexiv's grandparents spent a few years there, and then moved in the late 40s or early 50s to the United States, staying there until most of their children had grown up in the late 60s. They then moved back to their old house in New Manila. Zexiv's parent's preceeded them in returning to the home country and lived there for a perhaps 2 years, and this was thus the first house that Zexiv knew.

The house was built in the traditional Spanish style of many pre-war houses in the Philippines, with high ceilings, rippled glass windows, patterned floor tiles, a second floor balcony, a winding wooden staircase with statues of saints on the landing, and a separate building, which contained the garage and houseboy or driver's quarters. Zexiv's grandparents stayed in a room on the ground floor, which also contained the maid's quarters, and living room or sala, and an extended room for entertaining, while the second floor contained the children's bedrooms and another room which was used as a storeroom. As a child, Zexiv was always scared of the house, particularly the second floor and would make sure that at no time he was ever up there by himself. His curiousity would sometimes get the better of him though, and he remembers discovering at one time, interesting old toys in one of the rooms used as a storeroom, which also contained an old four poster bed that Zexiv's great grandfather was supposed to have died in. Perhaps because it was a very old house, he would have recurring nightmares, long after Zexiv's parents had moved out (initially to a rented house in Sampaloc Avenue, and later to a house of their own in Makati), of hordes of snakes crawling around the garden outside and vampires trying to break into the house at night.

Later on Zexiv's uncle and aunt built a house in the adjoining compound and the extended family would come to Zexiv's grandparents' house for a delicious Sunday lunch prepared by Zexiv's grandmother and aunt. His grandparents had a huge garden (at least in the eyes of the little grandchildren) and Zexiv, his siblings and their cousins enjoyed playing cops and robbers with their toy guns, hide and seek, and at times touch football (which Zexiv played but could never quite understand). The adjoining house of his uncle and aunt added new hideouts for the kids, and Zexiv's uncle would sometimes entertain Zexiv and his cousins by twirling around their toy revolvers, just like the gunfighters did in the movies. He remembers many things about his grandparents' house from his childhood - the different dogs his grandfather kept at various times (his most memorable of them being a huge and gentle half breed poodle named Maurice), the crunching sound the cars would make when rolling up the gravel stone driveway, an old dinner bell that sat on a console table, the santol and sampaloc trees that stood near the garage, old shrapnel marks from the Second World War on the bathroom of the second floor, an earthquake that shook the house once while the family was dining there, the tv shows that Zexiv would watch as a child in his grandparents' room, a hat rack that contained a pith style helmet that his grandfather wore on trips to the fishponds in Bulacan, the Lionel train that his grandfather liked to bring out every Christmas Eve.

After Zexiv's grandmother passed on a few years ago (Zexiv's grandfather had died more than 10 years earlier), the family made the sad decision to sell the now empty house and not long after that it was torn down. Last year Zexiv went home and was surprised to see tall grass growing where the garden and the house used to be. There are sure to be a couple of snakes out there now, thought Zexiv, as he surveyed the jungle like scene. Zexiv remembers walking slowly down the driveway almost to the end and being amazed to find the foundation still there, and recognizing the familiar patterned tiles from the floor of the dining room and sala. Somehow the lot seemed much smaller now with the house gone. It was a surreal feeling and brought back many memories ...

Diamonds are forever. Old houses are not.

Farewell to the old house ...

P.S. Thanks to Zexiv's cousin for forwarding this picture taken by a photographer friend of the family's before the house was torn down. We hope to give credit once we get his name ...

P.P.S. Zexiv remembers his grandfather, whose birthday it was today.