One of the boarding houses in Bacolod that is open to the Public is the J&L Maranon Arthouse. Located at the side of Metrodome (on the way to the old bacolod airport) this house is the epitome of kitsch and eccentricity allowed to run wild.
This house is so bizarre that it is totally a mind boggling experience. If you’re a fan of the strange and esoteric and love conspiracy theories and hidden meanings, this HOUSE is a must visit. In fact, everybody should visit this house! (30 pesos admission)
From the start, this house is an assault on your visual senses and intellect.
The Facade to the right of the main gate.The lion headed knocker on the cast iron gate.A beautiful tile mosaic at the front gate
Once you step in the garden it is overwhelming and kinda beautiful too! In fact it evokes the creepy feeling of being in an old house with huge figures of saints and angels.
A terracotta warriorA headless statue. Now where could his head have gone?There’s his head! It overlooks this lush garden that looks like a jungle from Indiana Jones.
A venus de milo statueAdam and eve. Eve reaches for an apple in the sepent’s mouth, Adam points accusingly at Eve while Eve gazes down upon a sphinx. Very strange symbolism
A pieta in the garden area.
An ornate egg shaped seat with stained glassA craftsman hard at work in the garage area of the J&L maranon arthouse. MORE art??? This house is chock full of it already. He is working on a sculpture depicting winged flying men.
A gorgon (Medusa?) glares balefully from a pillar. Her scales are made up of hundreds of glass marbles.
There’s a staircase leading to the roof area.. so we climbed up…
The stairs were decorated with an iron grapevine complete with tiny grapes!
We were in for a surprise when we got up.
This house keeps HAWKS as pets and have them enclosed on the top area along with some doves whom the hawks hunt down and kill whenever they are hungry. This is a big walk in cage.
After seeing the area, we headed inside the house where we each room seemed to have a theme. The entrance seemed to have a fairy land theme with wall murals of elves and fairies.
A gorgeous grape themed ceiling
Fairies and goblins cavort around the light switchesI think this is a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s a wall mural right beside the “fairyland” entrance.A minibar on the ground floor.
One of my favorite “rooms” is one decorated with shells and has soft blue/green light making one think that he is underwater.
A water dragon in the “underwater room”A wood carving of a mermaid.A dining room with gold roses.A sinister looking deer sculpture between the dining room and the underwater roomThe second floor was dark and gloomyDragons, dragons everywhere. This dragon is interestingly placed above a collection of clocks. Does it signify immortality? 🙂
We wish that we could show you more pictures of the house but we took HUNDREDS of pics and it’s impossible to post them all. Go see the art house for yourself! It’s a LOT of fun.
One weird error we noticed on the gates of the house as we left. The roman numerals read 2109. Oops! someone got their roman numerals wrong.
Was impressed with the whole artsy shmartsy deco and surrealist quack until the 2109 “snafu”. Or maybe it’s an Illuminati/Secret Society thing.. HAHAHA
The Bacolod Food Hunters 
Bag-o lang ko kabalo may amo ni gali sa Bacolod! Thanks for sharing this! Will drop by this interesting place soon.
i can’t believe this is in Bacolod…hope this is open on Saturday…nice one Marts!
tell me kay updan ta ka hahhahhahaha
Was impressed with the whole artsy shmartsy deco and surrealist quack until the 2109 “snafu”. Or maybe it’s an Illuminati/Secret Society thing.. HAHAHA
impressive art house…another tourist attraction in the city..
thanks for sharing..and btw, you got a nice blog!
this house was featured in rated K… looking from the outside of this house, i think it’s so creepy and scary to be sleeping inside hahaha
oh. it’s not that creepy. ive slept there a couple of times when i was in 4th grade 🙂 it’s my titos house 🙂
Hi! I know it’s not that creepy. Some conservative people think its demonic
gkalabyan ko na da, yeah some people even thought it’s haunted. lol
is this place still open to public.?
Yes!
Are there guides or staffs inside the museum to give details about the art?